Chapel Hill, NC has a B safety grade (61/100) with a violent crime rate of 172 per 100,000, 51% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Chapel Hill, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 63,906 residents, Chapel Hill 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.
Chapel Hill, NC is close to the national middle for violent crime, and earns a B PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 51% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Chapel Hill, NC shows violent crime at 172.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,514.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 51% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
B safety grade
172.1/100K violent
2514.6/100K property
-51% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Chapel Hill, NC
Comparable rate records
Chapel Hill's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Chapel Hill's 172.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Troutman (172.5), Jonesville (171.5), Cherryville (173.4), Woodfin (174.3). 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
Chapel Hill sits mid-pack among comparable North Carolina cities
At 172.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Chapel Hill ranks 136 of 206 — above 70 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -39.6% 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
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 6.4% of the 1,717 Part I offenses reported in Chapel Hill for 2024, against a median of 11.6% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 5.2 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 higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 168.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 172.1 in 2024 (+2.4%). The highest observed value was 187.9 in 2021 and the lowest 168.1 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Chapel Hill'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.
Chapel Hill's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 21.7 Census sq mi, Chapel Hill logged 74.1 property and 5.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Chapel Hill's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (74% of 1,717 offenses; mix index 5,708).
Violent offenses are only 6% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (21.7 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-5.1%
181.4 → 172.1/100K
Property Crime Rate
-3%
2591.2 → 2514.6/100K
Property offenses lead Chapel Hill's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,607
2514.6
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,271
1988.9
-
Burglary
217
339.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
119
186.2
-
Arson
4
6.3
-
Violent Crime
110
172.1
352
Aggravated Assault
72
112.7
-
Robbery
29
45.4
-
Rape
8
12.5
-
Murder
1
1.6
-
Chapel Hill Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Chapel Hill property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Chapel Hill Police Department
Reporting agency for Chapel Hill NIBRS-participating
Chapel Hill Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Chapel Hill's 1,717 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 Chapel Hill in population. Their populations run from 47,436 to 65,752, against 63,906 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Chapel Hill at 172.1/100K violent and 2,514.6/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Chapel Hill reported 110 violent crimes and 1,607 property crimes, for a total of 1,717 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Chapel Hill?
From 2023 to 2024, Chapel Hill's violent crime rate decreased by 5.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3%.
What is the most common crime in Chapel Hill?
The most common crime type in Chapel Hill is larceny-theft, accounting for 74.0% of all reported crimes (1,271 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Chapel Hill'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 Chapel Hill, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.