Raleigh, NC has a D safety grade (27/100) with a violent crime rate of 489 per 100,000, 39% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
Raleigh, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 488,085 residents, Raleigh is a very large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against NC and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Raleigh, NC carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 39% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Raleigh, NC shows violent crime at 488.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,819.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 39% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
D safety grade
488.8/100K violent
2819.2/100K property
+39% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Raleigh, NC
Comparable rate records
Raleigh's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Raleigh's 488.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Smithfield (490.2), Wilmington (482.8), Siler City (479.0), Waynesville (499.4). 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
Raleigh sits mid-pack among comparable North Carolina cities
At 488.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Raleigh ranks 55 of 206 — above 151 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +85.5% 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 417.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 488.8 in 2024 (+17.2%). The highest observed value was 532.9 in 2023 and the lowest 417.2 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 14.8% of the 16,146 Part I offenses reported in Raleigh for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 3.3 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 counts dominate Raleigh'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 very large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Raleigh's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 150.9 Census sq mi, Raleigh logged 91.2 property and 15.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Raleigh's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (62% of 16,146 offenses; mix index 4,284).
Violent offenses are only 15% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (150.9 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Both rates shifted (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-8.3%
532.9 → 488.8/100K
Property Crime Rate
+7.5%
2622.8 → 2819.2/100K
Property offenses lead Raleigh's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs NC
Property Crime
13,760
2819.2
1711
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
10,049
2058.9
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
2,349
481.3
-
-
Burglary
1,362
279
-
-
Arson
36
7.4
-
-
Violent Crime
2,386
488.8
352
364.6
Aggravated Assault
1,762
361
-
-
Robbery
423
86.7
-
-
Rape
176
36.1
-
-
Murder
25
5.1
-
-
Raleigh Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Raleigh 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
Raleigh Police Department
Reporting agency for Raleigh NIBRS-participating
Raleigh Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Raleigh's 16,146 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 Raleigh in population. Their populations run from 111,922 to 304,306, against 488,085 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Raleigh at 488.8/100K violent and 2,819.2/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Raleigh reported 2,386 violent crimes and 13,760 property crimes, for a total of 16,146 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Raleigh?
From 2023 to 2024, Raleigh's violent crime rate decreased by 8.3%, and the property crime rate increased by 7.5%.
What is the most common crime in Raleigh?
The most common crime type in Raleigh is larceny-theft, accounting for 62.2% of all reported crimes (10,049 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Raleigh'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 (very 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 Raleigh, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.