Overall, North Carolina’s violent and property crime rates are a bit above national levels in both categories, owing to high crime in large cities like Durham and Charlotte, where violent crime is nearly double the national rate of 3.69 offenses per 1,000.
However, the Tar Heel State’s safest communities stand in stark contrast to these crime-plagued urban areas, each offering a safe, secure environment to its residents.
Pinehurst is North Carolina’s safest municipality. The Moore County village of 16K is well known as the home of the famous Pinehurst Resort, a historic golf resort with a large area of its central village designated as a National Historic Landmark District. True to its image as an upper-crust resort community, Pinehurst recorded a low 0.93 per 1,000 violent crime rate, along with the lowest property crime rate in the state (6.85 per 1,000).
The second safest community in North Carolina is Holly Springs, a rapidly expanding town of 37,000 in Wake County. The prosperous town scored North Carolina’s lowest violent crime rate, 0.51 offenses per 1,000.
Davidson, a historic town that’s home to the prestigious Davidson College, is North Carolina’s 3rd safest community. In 2018, the town had a violent crime rate below 1 per 1K, as well as a property crime rate less-than-half of the national rate.
Placing 4th is Cary, which with a population topping 170,000, is the seventh-largest municipality in the state. Despite Cary’s size, the town boasts remarkably low crime rates, including a 0.62 per 1,000 rate of violent crime.
Closing out the list of North Carolina’s 5 safest cities is Apex, a town that has experienced a population boom in recent decades due to nearby Research Triangle Park’s demand for skilled technology workers. Like other communities on the list, Apex’s violent crime rate is under 1 offense per 1,000.
North Carolina’s Safest Cities
NC City Population Violent
crimeProperty
crimeLaw enforcement
employeesTotal crimes Crime rate per 1,000 Violent crimes per 1,000 Property crimes per 1,000 Law enforcement per 1,000
1 Pinehurst 16213 15 111 30 126 7.77 0.93 6.85 1.85
2 Holly Springs 37008 19 267 67 286 7.73 0.51 7.21 1.81
3 Davidson 12954 12 127 22 139 10.73 0.93 9.80 1.70
4 Cary 170518 105 1666 231 1771 10.39 0.62 9.77 1.35
5 Apex 52577 50 663 96 713 13.56 0.95 12.61 1.83
6 Boone 19524 18 289 48 307 15.72 0.92 14.80 2.46
7 Wake Forest 44318 49 653 91 702 15.84 1.11 14.73 2.05
8 Huntersville 57677 74 884 100 958 16.61 1.28 15.33 1.73
9 Leland 21008 27 320 34 347 16.52 1.29 15.23 1.62
10 Southern Pines 14271 33 312 49 345 24.17 2.31 21.86 3.43
11 Concord 94022 93 1679 189 1772 18.85 0.99 17.86 2.01
12 Mount Holly 15940 23 302 37 325 20.39 1.44 18.95 2.32
13 Archdale 11529 27 235 32 262 22.73 2.34 20.38 2.78
14 Clayton 22258 27 417 47 444 19.95 1.21 18.73 2.11
15 Kannapolis 49750 109 968 103 1077 21.65 2.19 19.46 2.07
16 Carrboro 21841 31 407 38 438 20.05 1.42 18.63 1.74
17 Sanford 29483 64 782 102 846 28.69 2.17 26.52 3.46
18 Mooresville 38340 72 1018 108 1090 28.43 1.88 26.55 2.82
19 Lexington 18754 119 489 65 608 32.42 6.35 26.07 3.47
20 Mint Hill 27375 58 471 32 529 19.32 2.12 17.21 1.17
21 New Bern 29600 108 940 107 1048 35.41 3.65 31.76 3.61
22 Jacksonville 71715 208 1763 154 1971 27.48 2.90 24.58 2.15
23 Rocky Mount 54085 420 1577 188 1997 36.92 7.77 29.16 3.48
24 Matthews 32873 66 949 79 1015 30.88 2.01 28.87 2.40
25 Kings Mountain 10808 37 400 39 437 40.43 3.42 37.01 3.61
26 Greenville 93235 441 2707 232 3148 33.76 4.73 29.03 2.49
27 Havelock 19870 26 530 34 556 27.98 1.31 26.67 1.71
28 Newton 13121 66 453 44 519 39.55 5.03 34.52 3.35
29 Eden 14952 67 530 50 597 39.93 4.48 35.45 3.34
30 Smithfield 12507 49 454 41 503 40.22 3.92 36.30 3.28
31 Kernersville 24571 67 970 83 1037 42.20 2.73 39.48 3.38
32 High Point 112526 652 3682 289 4334 38.52 5.79 32.72 2.57
33 Burlington 53385 414 1877 168 2291 42.91 7.75 35.16 3.15
34 Greensboro 293298 1780 9831 781 11611 39.59 6.07 33.52 2.66
35 Thomasville 26591 83 1009 74 1092 41.07 3.12 37.95 2.78
36 Belmont 12331 39 550 42 589 47.77 3.16 44.60 3.41
37 Lenoir 17904 51 845 66 896 50.04 2.85 47.20 3.69
38 Hickory 40701 160 1884 138 2044 50.22 3.93 46.29 3.39
39 Durham 273759 1881 9755 641 11636 42.50 6.87 35.63 2.34
40 Charlotte-Mecklenburg 931235 6228 34881 2342 41109 44.14 6.69 37.46 2.51
41 Asheboro 25922 117 1168 80 1285 49.57 4.51 45.06 3.09
42 Hope Mills 16219 104 681 44 785 48.40 6.41 41.99 2.71
43 Reidsville 13774 104 693 49 797 57.86 7.55 50.31 3.56
44 Elizabeth City 17629 95 939 63 1034 58.65 5.39 53.26 3.57
45 Salisbury 33901 236 1579 93 1815 53.54 6.96 46.58 2.74
46 Asheville 93186 552 4798 283 5350 57.41 5.92 51.49 3.04
47 Albemarle 15991 119 853 52 972 60.78 7.44 53.34 3.25
48 Gastonia 77316 525 3839 193 4364 56.44 6.79 49.65 2.50
49 Kinston 20341 226 1305 73 1531 75.27 11.11 64.16 3.59
50 Henderson 14780 268 804 44 1072 72.53 18.13 54.40 2.98
Methodology
To identify the safest cities, we reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. We eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and cities with populations under 10,000. This left 3,381 cities (out of a total of 9,251).
There are two broad classifications of crimes: violent crimes and non-violent crimes. According to the FBI, “Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. ”
We computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. We then created a crime rate as the number of crimes per 1,000 population. Then we transformed the total crime rate variable so that the skewness was reduced and normalized.
Data from 2,831 law enforcement agencies was then collected to determine police adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees). We consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. This variable was also transformed and normalized.
Finally, the two variables were combined to create a safety score for each city.
