Salisbury, NC is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 173% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Salisbury, NC shows violent crime at 960 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,987.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 173% 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
960/100K violent
3987.5/100K property
+173% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Salisbury, NC
Position in the state cohort
Salisbury reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable North Carolina cities
At 960.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Salisbury ranks 13 of 206 — above 193 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +264.3% 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
Salisbury's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Salisbury's 960.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Kinston (958.6), Burlington (952.3), Greensboro (923.7), Pembroke (916.8). 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 higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 746.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 960.0 in 2024 (+28.7%). The highest observed value was 966.1 in 2023 and the lowest 746.1 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 19.4% of the 1,809 Part I offenses reported in Salisbury for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 8.0 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 Salisbury'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Salisbury's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 23.1 Census sq mi, Salisbury logged 63.1 property and 15.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Salisbury leans on larceny-theft at 56% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,687.
Violent offenses are 19% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (23.1 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
-3.4%
4128.7 → 3987.5/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-0.6%
966.1 → 960/100K
Property offenses lead Salisbury's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs NC
Property Crime
1,458
3987.5
1711
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
1,010
2762.3
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
301
823.2
-
-
Burglary
147
402
-
-
Arson
1
2.7
-
-
Violent Crime
351
960
352
364.6
Aggravated Assault
266
727.5
-
-
Robbery
53
145
-
-
Rape
21
57.4
-
-
Murder
11
30.1
-
-
Salisbury Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Salisbury 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
Salisbury Police Department
Reporting agency for Salisbury NIBRS-participating
Salisbury Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Salisbury's 1,809 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 Salisbury in population. Their populations run from 31,494 to 38,903, against 36,564 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Salisbury at 960/100K violent and 3,987.5/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Salisbury reported 351 violent crimes and 1,458 property crimes, for a total of 1,809 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Salisbury?
From 2023 to 2024, Salisbury's violent crime rate decreased by 0.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3.4%.
What is the most common crime in Salisbury?
The most common crime type in Salisbury is larceny-theft, accounting for 55.8% of all reported crimes (1,010 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Salisbury figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Salisbury, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.