Wake Forest, NC has a B safety grade (74/100) with a violent crime rate of 147 per 100,000, 58% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Wake Forest, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 55,872 residents, Wake Forest 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.
Wake Forest, NC is close to the national middle for violent crime, and earns a B PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 58% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Wake Forest, NC shows violent crime at 146.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,304.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 58% 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
146.8/100K violent
1304.8/100K property
-58% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Wake Forest, NC
Comparable rate records
Wake Forest's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Wake Forest's 146.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Blowing Rock (148.5), Emerald Isle (149.7), Huntersville (143.0), China Grove (151.8). 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.
Position in the state cohort
Wake Forest sits mid-pack among comparable North Carolina cities
At 146.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Wake Forest ranks 148 of 206 — above 58 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -48.5% 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft dominates the property total more than it does across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 85.6% of reported property offenses in Wake Forest, against a cohort median of 74.5%. The remainder is burglary (58) and motor vehicle theft (47). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 140.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 146.8 in 2024 (+4.6%). The highest observed value was 157.8 in 2023 and the lowest 114.8 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Wake Forest'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.
Wake Forest's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 19.9 Census sq mi, Wake Forest logged 36.7 property and 4.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Wake Forest's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (77% of 811 offenses; mix index 6,084).
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (19.9 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-18.1%
1592.9 → 1304.8/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-7%
157.8 → 146.8/100K
Property offenses lead Wake Forest's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs NC
Property Crime
729
1304.8
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
624
1116.8
-
Burglary
58
103.8
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
47
84.1
-
Arson
2
3.6
-
Violent Crime
82
146.8
364.6
Aggravated Assault
72
128.9
-
Robbery
5
8.9
-
Rape
3
5.4
-
Murder
2
3.6
-
Wake Forest Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Wake Forest 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
Wake Forest Police Department
Reporting agency for Wake Forest NIBRS-participating
Wake Forest Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Wake Forest's 811 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 Wake Forest in population. Their populations run from 47,436 to 65,752, against 55,872 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Wake Forest at 146.8/100K violent and 1,304.8/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Wake Forest reported 82 violent crimes and 729 property crimes, for a total of 811 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Wake Forest?
From 2023 to 2024, Wake Forest's violent crime rate decreased by 7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 18.1%.
What is the most common crime in Wake Forest?
The most common crime type in Wake Forest is larceny-theft, accounting for 76.9% of all reported crimes (624 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Wake Forest'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 Wake Forest, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.