Cary, NC has a A safety grade (81/100) with a violent crime rate of 71 per 100,000, 80% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 181,793 residents, Cary 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.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Cary, NC is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 80% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Cary, NC shows violent crime at 71 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,317.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 80% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Cary's 71.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Fuquay-Varina (69.6), Fletcher (73.0), Weldon (73.3), West Jefferson (74.6). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 71.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Cary ranks 178 of 206 — above 28 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -75.1% against the cohort median of 285.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 5.1% of the 2,524 Part I offenses reported in Cary for 2024, against a median of 11.6% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 6.5 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 84.3% of reported property offenses in Cary, against a cohort median of 74.5%. The remainder is burglary (161) and motor vehicle theft (215). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 69.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 71.0 in 2024 (+2.3%). The highest observed value was 104.4 in 2023 and the lowest 69.4 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Cary'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.
Across 61 Census sq mi, Cary logged 39.3 property and 2.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Cary's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (80% of 2,524 offenses; mix index 6,526).
Violent offenses are only 5% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Cary offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (61 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 2,395 | 1317.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,019 | 1110.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 215 | 118.3 |
| Burglary | 161 | 88.6 |
| Arson | 8 | 4.4 |
| Violent Crime | 129 | 71 |
| Aggravated Assault | 91 | 50.1 |
| Robbery | 23 | 12.7 |
| Rape | 12 | 6.6 |
| Murder | 3 | 1.7 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 174,441 | 69.4 | 961.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 177,735 | 76 | 968.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 178,600 | 81.7 | 1110.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 182,878 | 104.4 | 1235.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 181,793 | 71 | 1317.4 |
Cary Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Cary's 2,524 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the North Carolina cities closest to Cary in population. Their populations run from 85,112 to 254,041, against 181,793 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Cary sits at 71/100K violent (grade A); the North Carolina cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Cary at 71/100K violent and 1,317.4/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
71/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,317.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-32% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Cary reported 129 violent crimes and 2,395 property crimes, for a total of 2,524 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Cary's violent crime rate decreased by 32%, and the property crime rate increased by 6.7%.
The most common crime type in Cary is larceny-theft, accounting for 80.0% of all reported crimes (2,019 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Cary'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.
Large-city rate methodology for how Cary's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Cary, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Cary, NC FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Cary is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (181,793 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.