Rocky Mount, NC has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 765 per 100,000, 117% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Rocky Mount, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 54,223 residents, Rocky Mount 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.
Rocky Mount, NC carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 117% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Rocky Mount, NC shows violent crime at 765.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,979.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 117% 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
765.4/100K violent
3979.9/100K property
+117% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Rocky Mount, NC
Position in the state cohort
Rocky Mount reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable North Carolina cities
At 765.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Rocky Mount ranks 26 of 206 — above 180 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +190.5% 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.
Comparable rate records
Rocky Mount's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Rocky Mount's 765.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Atlantic Beach (775.7), Wilson's Mills (754.7), Benson (748.6), Asheville (796.1). 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 1152.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 765.4 in 2024 (-33.6%). The highest observed value was 1152.8 in 2020 and the lowest 765.4 in 2024. 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 16.1% of the 2,573 Part I offenses reported in Rocky Mount for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 4.7 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 Rocky Mount'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.
Rocky Mount's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 45.2 Census sq mi, Rocky Mount logged 47.7 property and 9.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Rocky Mount's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (60% of 2,573 offenses; mix index 4,067).
Violent offenses are 16% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (45.2 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
+20.5%
3302.7 → 3979.9/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-13.4%
883.7 → 765.4/100K
Property offenses lead Rocky Mount's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs NC
Property Crime
2,158
3979.9
1711
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
1,545
2849.3
-
-
Burglary
401
739.5
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
212
391
-
-
Arson
26
48
-
-
Violent Crime
415
765.4
352
364.6
Aggravated Assault
302
557
-
-
Robbery
85
156.8
-
-
Rape
21
38.7
-
-
Murder
7
12.9
-
-
Rocky Mount Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Rocky Mount 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
Rocky Mount Police Department
Reporting agency for Rocky Mount NIBRS-participating
Rocky Mount Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Rocky Mount's 2,573 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 Rocky Mount in population. Their populations run from 44,682 to 63,906, against 54,223 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Rocky Mount at 765.4/100K violent and 3,979.9/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Rocky Mount reported 415 violent crimes and 2,158 property crimes, for a total of 2,573 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Rocky Mount?
From 2023 to 2024, Rocky Mount's violent crime rate decreased by 13.4%, and the property crime rate increased by 20.5%.
What is the most common crime in Rocky Mount?
The most common crime type in Rocky Mount is larceny-theft, accounting for 60.0% of all reported crimes (1,545 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Rocky Mount'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 Rocky Mount, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.