Home, vehicle break-ins down in Raleigh, but some areas still more prone to crime than others

Some 17,800 cars have been broken into in Raleigh since the beginning of 2019, which data show is down less than 2 percent from a year ago.

“I’m kind of surprised and a little bit worried," Patrick Daley, who was visiting Shelley Lake, said of the data. "I’m very careful not to come out here unless there are cars parked here, first thing, and secondly, I never leave my wallet in the car or anything like that. I’m quite careful about that.”

Raleigh police have pushed the Lock, Take and Hide program – lock your car, take your keys and hide your belongings – at local parks and greenways to raise awareness about warding off break-ins, and officers say thefts from those locations have dropped 85 percent.

Although Raleigh's population has risen more than 8 percent in six years, residential burglaries in the city have been decreasing during that time.

More than 9,500 homes have been broken into in Raleigh since the beginning of 2015. But from a high in 2017, they dropped 25 percent by 2019. During the last two years, more people working from home during the pandemic resulted in fewer opportunities for break-ins, according to experts.

The ZIP code with the most residential burglaries – more than double the second-highest – is 27610, which covers a large area of southeast Raleigh. Northeast Raleigh's 27604 ZIP code ranks second, followed by 27606 in southwest Raleigh.

The Eaglechase neighborhood, off Poole Road in southeast Raleigh, has had 127 residential break-ins in the past six years, which is the most in the city. University Park, near Wade Avenue and Oberlin Road, is a close second with 124, followed by the Thompson Hunter neighborhood east of downtown Raleigh, with 117, and Wakefield Plantation in north Raleigh, with 89.