Asheville, NC has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 796 per 100,000, 126% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Asheville, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 95,219 residents, Asheville is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against NC and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Asheville, NC carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 126% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Asheville, NC shows violent crime at 796.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,895.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 126% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
F safety grade
796.1/100K violent
3895.2/100K property
+126% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Asheville, NC
Position in the state cohort
Asheville reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable North Carolina cities
At 796.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Asheville ranks 24 of 206 — above 182 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +202.1% against the cohort median of 263.5. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Comparable rate records
Asheville's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Asheville's 796.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Winston-Salem (809.7), Atlantic Beach (775.7), Rocky Mount (765.4), Wilson's Mills (754.7). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 17.0% of the 4,467 Part I offenses reported in Asheville for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 5.5 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 853.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 796.1 in 2024 (-6.7%). The highest observed value was 954.9 in 2022 and the lowest 788.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Asheville's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Asheville's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 45.5 Census sq mi, Asheville logged 81.6 property and 16.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Asheville's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (63% of 4,467 offenses; mix index 4,352).
Violent offenses are 17% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (45.5 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-14.8%
4571.5 → 3895.2/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-8.1%
866.6 → 796.1/100K
Property offenses lead Asheville's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs NC
Property Crime
3,709
3895.2
1711
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
2,815
2956.3
-
-
Burglary
573
601.8
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
321
337.1
-
-
Arson
30
31.5
-
-
Violent Crime
758
796.1
352
364.6
Aggravated Assault
556
583.9
-
-
Robbery
108
113.4
-
-
Rape
82
86.1
-
-
Murder
12
12.6
-
-
Asheville Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Asheville property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Asheville Police Department
Reporting agency for Asheville NIBRS-participating
Asheville Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Asheville's 4,467 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Similar-Size Cities in North Carolina
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the North Carolina cities closest to Asheville in population. Their populations run from 60,906 to 125,101, against 95,219 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Asheville at 796.1/100K violent and 3,895.2/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Asheville reported 758 violent crimes and 3,709 property crimes, for a total of 4,467 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Asheville?
From 2023 to 2024, Asheville's violent crime rate decreased by 8.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 14.8%.
What is the most common crime in Asheville?
The most common crime type in Asheville is larceny-theft, accounting for 63.0% of all reported crimes (2,815 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Asheville's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Asheville, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.