Crime in Shelby, North Carolina
Major crime in Shelby is 1.6 times the U.S. rate per resident: 2.4 times for persons crimes and 46% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 7.9% 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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Murder stands out most, at 3.2 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Shelby 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 Shelby
The middle half of Shelby residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 115 and 204; the typical (median) resident's is 146.
- 0–500.0%
- 50–10017.4%
- 100–20055.4%
- 200–40024.8%
- 400+2.4%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 7.9% 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.
Shelby against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
105 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Shelby; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Shelby has a higher major-crime index than 7 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Kings Mountain (10 mi), is 14% below Shelby's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Shelby
What are the most common crimes in Shelby?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 322 a year), aggravated assault (about 162 a year) and burglary (about 121 a year). Compared with the U.S., murder stands out most: 3.2 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. Shelby's figures add up its 20 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Shelby has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 0.0% 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: 25,601. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Shelby, North Carolina." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/nc/shelby
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Kings Mountain10 mi140
- Cherryville11 mi106
- Bessemer City14 mi100
- East Gaffney, SC15 mi142
- Gaffney, SC16 mi152
- Forest City19 mi216
- Dallas20 mi89
- Gastonia21 mi161