Winston-Salem, NC has a F safety grade (4/100) with a violent crime rate of 810 per 100,000, 130% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
Winston-Salem, NC Crime Rate & Safety
At 254,041 residents, Winston-Salem 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.
Winston-Salem, NC carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 130% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Winston-Salem, NC shows violent crime at 809.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,921.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 130% 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
809.7/100K violent
2921.2/100K property
+130% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Winston-Salem, NC
Position in the state cohort
Winston-Salem reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable North Carolina cities
At 809.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Winston-Salem ranks 23 of 206 — above 183 of the 205 other North Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +207.3% 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
Winston-Salem's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the North Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Winston-Salem's 809.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Asheville (796.1), Oxford (841.5), Atlantic Beach (775.7), Gastonia (849.5). 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 1253.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 809.7 in 2024 (-35.4%). The highest observed value was 1253.9 in 2020 and the lowest 809.7 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 21.7% of the 9,478 Part I offenses reported in Winston-Salem for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable North Carolina cities — a gap of 10.3 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 Winston-Salem'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.
Winston-Salem's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 133.7 Census sq mi, Winston-Salem logged 55.5 property and 15.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Winston-Salem leans on larceny-theft at 54% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,506.
Violent offenses are 22% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (133.7 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
-9.1%
890.4 → 809.7/100K
Property Crime Rate
-4.2%
3048.4 → 2921.2/100K
Property offenses lead Winston-Salem's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs NC
Property Crime
7,421
2921.2
1711
1929.5
Larceny-Theft
5,073
1996.9
-
-
Burglary
1,448
570
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
900
354.3
-
-
Arson
70
27.6
-
-
Violent Crime
2,057
809.7
352
364.6
Aggravated Assault
1,664
655
-
-
Robbery
247
97.2
-
-
Rape
117
46.1
-
-
Murder
29
11.4
-
-
Winston-Salem Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Winston-Salem property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Winston-Salem Police Department
Reporting agency for Winston-Salem NIBRS-participating
Winston-Salem Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Winston-Salem's 9,478 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 Winston-Salem in population. Their populations run from 95,219 to 304,306, against 254,041 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Winston-Salem at 809.7/100K violent and 2,921.2/100K property - matched below outside North Carolina (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Winston-Salem reported 2,057 violent crimes and 7,421 property crimes, for a total of 9,478 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Winston-Salem?
From 2023 to 2024, Winston-Salem's violent crime rate decreased by 9.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 4.2%.
What is the most common crime in Winston-Salem?
The most common crime type in Winston-Salem is larceny-theft, accounting for 53.5% of all reported crimes (5,073 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Winston-Salem'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 Winston-Salem, NC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.