Crime rates for Chapel Hill, NC

With a crime rate of 59 per one thousand residents, Chapel Hill has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 17. Within North Carolina, more than 70% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Chapel Hill.

Separately, it is always interesting and important to compare a town's crime rate with those of similarly sized communities - a fair comparison as larger cities tend to have more crime. NeighborhoodScout has done just that. With a population of 48,796, Chapel Hill has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. Regardless of whether Chapel Hill does well or poorly compared to all other cities and towns in the US of all sizes, compared to places with a similar population, it fares badly. Few other communities of this size have a crime rate as high as Chapel Hill.

The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.

Now let us turn to take a look at how Chapel Hill does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Chapel Hill.

From our analysis, we discovered that violent crime in Chapel Hill occurs at a rate higher than in most communities of all population sizes in America. The chance that a person will become a victim of a violent crime in Chapel Hill – such as armed robbery, aggravated assault, rape or murder – is 1 in 211. This equates to a rate of 5 per one thousand inhabitants.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Chapel Hill is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Chapel Hill, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 18, which is a rate of 54 per one thousand population.