How Does Atlanta’s Burglary Rate Compare to the Rest of Georgia?

Atlanta's burglary rate runs about 1.4 times the national rate, roughly 345 versus 250 per 100,000, and its overall property crime rate runs close to double the national average. The city also ranks in the bottom 3 percent of U.S. cities for overall safety. Georgia's statewide property crime rate, around 1,675 per 100,000, sits near the national average, while the Atlanta metro specifically runs elevated. These are property-crime figures, not violent crime, and they have stayed elevated over time rather than spiking in a single bad year.

The data suggests a more careful look than most north suburban residents give it. Cherokee and Forsyth counties have lower crime rates than Atlanta’s urban core, but they also have documented organized crew activity targeting high-income suburban properties post-2020. The relevant question is not whether your neighborhood is safer than downtown Atlanta. It almost certainly is. The question is whether your specific home contains contents worth protecting and whether the occupancy pattern gives an attacker enough uninterrupted time to act. In most north suburban two-income households, both are true.

The pattern is more specific than a general worsening. Atlanta’s APD reported property crime down about 10 percent in 2025 (overall crime down about 7 percent), which is a real improvement. The shift that matters for suburban homeowners is structural: organized crews with sophisticated target selection have expanded their operational range into the north suburban corridor since 2020. That shift is independent of the headline improvement, which is concentrated in urban core data. The suburban organized crew pattern has continued even as total metro figures show some improvement.

Organized crews are not random. They select targets based on three factors: concentration of high-value contents, predictable absence patterns, and a community security posture that has not adapted to the threat. North Atlanta suburbs score on all three. Forsyth County has the highest median household income in Georgia, with Cherokee among the most affluent counties, meaning the homes contain more worth taking. Two-income professional households are empty on predictable schedules. And communities that have historically felt safe often have not invested in the physical security infrastructure that urban buyers adopted years ago.

APD’s 2025 improvement reflects real progress in parts of the metro. It does not reflect what is happening in Cherokee, Forsyth, and Gwinnett, which operate under their own county sheriff departments and which are not the source of the improvement the APD figure describes. The organized crew patterns documented in the north suburban corridor have continued independently of metro-level headline improvements. Treating the APD number as a reason to reduce security vigilance in the suburbs is a misread of what the data actually shows.

Every figure on this page comes from verifiable sources: FBI NIBRS data, Georgia Bureau of Investigation reports, and field documentation built from 48 years of installations across this exact footprint. The goal is not to create urgency. It is to give a north suburban homeowner the same accurate risk picture that an informed security professional would use to evaluate their situation. If the data does not apply to your specific circumstances, whether that means minimal valuables, a low-predictability schedule, or an existing layered security plan, a safe may not change your risk profile meaningfully. That is an honest answer too.