Crime in Durham, North Carolina
Major crime in Durham is 2.4 times the U.S. rate per resident: 1.6 times for persons crimes and 2.5 times for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 3.3% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
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Theft from vehicle stands out most, at 4.3 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Durham for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Durham
The middle half of Durham residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 67 and 309; the typical (median) resident's is 149. The citywide figure (237) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5018.7%
- 50–10019.8%
- 100–20022.0%
- 200–40022.3%
- 400+17.2%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekday daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 3.3% in a year; across North Carolina it fell 9.0%
Change in expected crimes, with North Carolina as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Durham against U.S. places with 250,000 to 500,000 residents
9 of the 53 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Durham; the middle of the group is 142. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Durham has a higher major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Chapel Hill (9 mi), is 42% below Durham's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Durham
What are the most common crimes in Durham?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are theft from vehicle (about 3,599 a year), shoplifting (about 2,962 a year) and other larceny (about 2,273 a year). Compared with the U.S., theft from vehicle stands out most: 4.3 times the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Durham's figures add up its 205 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Durham's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 66.9% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 316,078. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Durham, North Carolina." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/nc/durham
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Chapel Hill9 mi138
- Morrisville11 mi138
- Carrboro11 mi130
- Hillsborough12 mi143
- Butner13 mi73
- Cary14 mi49
- Creedmoor16 mi83
- Apex17 mi44