Is Atlanta safe in 2026? Chief Schierbaum’s 98 homicides are not a sensor on your door
The search is “is Atlanta safe 2026,” “Atlanta crime rate,” and “Atlanta burglary.” The honest answer uses Atlanta Police citywide figures, not a neighborhood rumor and not a heat map we do not have. APD Chief Darin Schierbaum, speaking with Atlanta News First on January 20, 2026, said the city had 98 homicides in 2025 versus 171 in 2022 — a 43 percent decline — and fewer than 100 homicides for the first time since 2019. Overall crime was down 7 percent versus 2024. Aggravated assaults and robberies increased year over year. Car break-ins were down roughly 15 percent. Officers arrested 1,097 repeat offenders in 2025. A better homicide year is good news. It is not a person watching your slider while you sit in a Grady pickup line.
Home Alarm Systems Atlanta does not scare-sell those figures. We cite APD and then sell the product: professionally installed sensors, optional cameras, ADT 24/7, cellular backup when Georgia Power is dark. Call (470) 986-0038 with the ZIP. SafeStreets is the ADT Authorized Provider that installs. ADT monitors 24/7. This site is not ADT corporate. We do not invent neighborhood crime rates. We do not print a Virginia-Highland number, a Buckhead number, or a Midtown number we do not have. Citywide is citywide. Occupancy is still occupancy. Empty weekday houses still sit. The official Atlanta Security Pros lockup on homealarmsystemsatlanta.com is ADT Authorized Provider plus SafeStreets.
What Chief Schierbaum actually said in January 2026
Treat the numbers as 2025 citywide APD, reported January 20, 2026 by Atlanta News First, not as a marketing brochure. Ninety-eight homicides in 2025 versus 171 in 2022, a 43 percent decline. Under 100 homicides for the first time since 2019. Overall crime down 7 percent compared with 2024. Aggravated assaults and robberies up year over year. Car break-ins down roughly 15 percent. 1,097 repeat offenders arrested in 2025, tied to more than 32,000 prior offenses. The department’s Conversation With the Chief the same day put overall crime at −7 percent and a 77.55 percent homicide clearance rate. We will not invent a burglary percentage we do not have. We will not invent a porch-theft count. We will not invent a neighborhood-by-neighborhood rate. Citywide figures mix Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, the west side, and the intown bungalow streets. A quieter year is not 24/7 monitoring.
Homicide totals are not how we quote a Virginia-Highland stoop. Porch packages, leftover keypads, and school-day empties are. If you own a house, a tried door, a garage, and a box on the stoop are the categories that match a door sensor, a garage contact, and an optional doorbell. We will not pretend 98 homicides means every ZIP is interchangeable. We also will not pretend a 43 percent drop is a reason to panic-buy twelve cameras — or a reason to skip the contact.
This article is dated in 2026 so those 2025 figures can sit here honestly. We do not backdate them into a 2025 evergreen post and pretend the year had not closed. When APD publishes a later year, that is a different sentence. Until then, Atlanta News First plus Chief Schierbaum is the citation we will stand behind.
How to read a better year without buying fear — or a skip
Citywide figures mix Downtown, Midtown, Virginia-Highland, Buckhead, West End, and Grant Park. A neighbor on a porch is not an ADT operator. A year-over-year drop is not a lock. Repeat-offender arrests are a police sentence. They are not a sensor on your Inman Park side door. Aggravated assaults and robberies being up is a serious public-safety sentence. It is not the product we sell. We sell a keypad as a door plan. Keep the product in its lane or you will hate it for the wrong reason.
Vehicle break-ins still exist even when the chief says they are down roughly 15 percent. A garage walk-through contact is the boring add. A camera on Complete is the clip of a driveway. Neither replaces the other. Ask for the opening you actually have. Porch theft is not in the homicide total. Break-ins are closer to this product than homicide is. Empty houses are closer still. Order monitoring for the hours you are gone. That is the whole use of this page.
We will not tell you Atlanta is dangerous so you will buy a grid. We will not tell you Atlanta is so improved the leftover keypad can wait. Both of those sentences are sales tricks. The honest sentence is occupancy. This journal is the 2026 APD numbers without the scare.
What homeowners actually call the 470 line about
Not homicide maps. A box that walked off North Highland. A leftover builder keypad in Alpharetta. A Midtown condo empty toward a Peachtree badge. A Buckhead house empty toward APS or private-school pickup. A Georgia Power outage that killed a Wi-Fi camera. Those calls did not wait for a crime map to turn red. They waited for the house to sit empty.
House versus condo, ZIP, cameras yes or no, leftover keypad. That is the 470 intake. We do not need a heat map. We need openings. A Downtown 30303 condo with one door is not a Virginia-Highland walk-out. A Grant Park house with six windows you open is not a Johns Creek ranch with a garage. Architecture is not the quote. Occupancy is. We confirm the install window on the call.
Promotional packages start at $49.99/mo* for ADT Secure, then Secure+ $53.99*, Smart $60.99*, Complete $64.99*. $99 install on many plans. Ask about the free alarm-system promo ($850 value) on qualifying monitoring*. Typically 36 months. Early termination fees apply. Credit approval applies. Offers are for homeowners. Crime being down does not change those numbers. Crime being down also does not make a leftover keypad live. The four numbers live on monitoring packages. What ADT costs in Atlanta is the money.
City of Atlanta is not Sandy Springs, Marietta, or Gwinnett
Downtown, Midtown, Virginia-Highland, Inman Park, Grant Park, and Buckhead collect the citywide APD count when they sit inside the city limit. Weekday empties toward offices, APS bells, and BeltLine errands. That is a door problem plus, sometimes, a stoop problem. A lobby camera is the association’s. Your door is still your door. Porch packages is the intown stoop article. Buckhead and Midtown are occupancy pages. We install in all of them when they sit in this window. We do not tell you one is “safe so skip it” or one is “unsafe so buy twelve cameras.” We tell you the house sits. Order the openings.
Independent cities — Sandy Springs, Marietta, Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Peachtree City, Decatur — are not in APD’s citywide count the way a City of Atlanta street is. Do not treat Chief Schierbaum’s 2025 figures as a Johns Creek grade. Confirm the desk from the ZIP. A quieter city still has school-day empties, leftover keypads, and porch boxes. A city ZIP with a better year still has sliders. Communities we serve is the map. Sandy Springs, Marietta, Alpharetta, Johns Creek, and Peachtree City still empty on a Tuesday.
Break-ins and empty hours match this product. Homicide totals do not.
A professionally installed system cannot promise your address is not in next year’s count. It can promise that an armed door opening becomes a call from ADT instead of a surprise when you get home from pickup. People skip monitoring in a “down year” and then order after the one incident on their street. That is a human pattern, not an Atlanta-only pattern. The cheaper time to order is the week you move in, leftover keypad still on the wall, $99 install* still on the table, not the week after someone tried the slider.
Intown houses in Virginia-Highland, Inman Park, Grant Park, and Candler Park sit with a side door nobody can see from the street. Count that door. A doorbell on the front does not see it. Empty at 1 p.m. is still empty if the view is pretty. Occupancy, not a view. Alpharetta and Johns Creek new-builds sit empty toward Fulton County Schools bells with a leftover keypad the builder called an alarm. It is not. Photograph the leftover.
Cellular backup is the other “down year” sentence. A better crime year does not stop a storm from taking Georgia Power lines. A Wi-Fi camera still dies with the router. Ask it on the quote even if you called because of a news story. This metro is Georgia Power, Cobb EMC, Jackson EMC, GreyStone, and Marietta Power. Never Duke. Georgia Power and cellular backup is the outage article.
Permits and false alarms are not a crime score
City of Atlanta Chapter 70 Article II requires a free permit with annual renewal. CryWolf is 1-855-725-7102. False alarms on a permitted system under 70-33(d), rolling 365 days: first warning, second warning, third $50 (a class may waive), fourth $100, fifth and sixth $200, successive $500. ATL311 lists $150 for an unregistered false alarm. 70-33(e) is $75 without a permit. A professionally installed system with a walkthrough is how you stay in the warning brackets. A scared DIY kit with no delay is how you train APD on noise. Atlanta versus Sandy Springs versus Marietta desks is the comparison if you are not in the city. Fulton and DeKalb edges are Atlanta city versus Fulton and DeKalb.
False alarms do not make Atlanta less safe. They make responders less interested in your address. That is the opposite of what you wanted when you searched “is Atlanta safe.” Pay for the install. Learn the cancel process. Add the spouse to the app. Sandy Springs wants verification before burglar dispatch. Marietta has its own CryWolf. Unincorporated Cobb registers at cityalarmpermit.us. Gwinnett runs $0 / $25 / $50 / $100 on a calendar year. Confirm ZIP. Do not invent Sandy Springs or Marietta residential permit dollars.
What we will not do with APD’s 2025 numbers
We will not draw a heat map. We will not rank neighborhoods as good and bad for SEO. We will not tell you a named intown street is unsafe. We will not tell you Buckhead is so safe the leftover keypad can wait. We will not use Chief Darin Schierbaum’s quotes as a closer. We will not hide $49.99*, $99 install*, the $850 equipment promo on qualifying monitoring*, or 36 months behind a crime statistic. We will not take a form. We will not take a tenant on the homeowner promotion. We will not invent a Virginia-Highland rate, an East Atlanta rate, or a Marietta rate.
We will not pretend 98 homicides is a personality trait of the city that lasts forever. The chief’s challenge is not our headline. Our headline is still occupancy. Empty house. Door. ADT. Aggravated assaults and robberies being up is an APD problem. It is not a reason we sell you a camera pole. Repeat-offender arrests are an APD deployment. They are not your hallway.
School days, not night-time legends
Most of the unsupervised hours in this metro are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a school calendar. Atlanta Public Schools. Fulton County Schools. DeKalb. Cobb. Gwinnett. City Schools of Decatur. Marietta City Schools. Those hours match a tried door better than a Saturday night story. School-day empties is the calendar article. Arm the system for those hours even if you only searched this page because a homicide total made the news. We will not lecture ratings.
Emory and CDC calendars empty nearby streets on a different rhythm. Falcons, Hawks, and Braves nights empty Downtown and also empty intown houses if you have tickets. Alpharetta and Johns Creek empty toward GA-400 jobs plus Fulton County Schools bells. One system. Several calendars. Arm whenever the hallway is empty. Weekday empty houses is the occupancy article for those hours.
What a 43 percent homicide drop still leaves on a Tuesday
It leaves a North Highland stoop with a box on it. It leaves a 30022 leftover keypad that never had your name on a contract. It leaves a Sandy Springs house that needs verification equipment if you want burglar dispatch to be eligible. It leaves a Buckhead HOA that may limit a street camera while the slider still needs a contact. It leaves Georgia Power taking the Wi-Fi on a storm Tuesday. None of those sentences are in the homicide total. All of them are the 470 call.
Car break-ins down roughly 15 percent is still a garage door you should count. Robberies up year over year is a public-safety sentence we will not turn into a camera grid. Overall crime down 7 percent versus 2024 is not a reason to skip $49.99/mo*. It is also not a reason to panic. Occupancy. Openings. ADT. That is the product that still matches a Tuesday at 1 p.m. when the chief’s year was better than 2022.
How to order is the process. Call for the quote is the only intake. House versus condo. ZIP. Cameras yes or no. Leftover keypad. We confirm the window on the call.
Packages stay the same in a quieter year
Secure $49.99*. Secure+ $53.99*. Smart $60.99*. Complete $64.99*. $99 install on many plans. $850 free-system promo on qualifying monitoring*. 36-month agreement. Homeowners only. Early termination fees apply. Credit approval applies. A better homicide year does not discount those numbers and does not inflate them. Ask about the promo on the 470 line. Do not wait for a local incident to make the leftover plastic look expensive.
Complete is the video-ready promotional plan if you want the clip of a stoop or a driveway. Secure is still a monitored house if you only want openings. Smart is the weekday plan if you disarm from GA-400. Pick the layer that matches the empty hours you actually have. The official Atlanta Security Pros lockup is on the site. The four prices are on monitoring packages.
Order monitoring for the hours you are gone
Call (470) 986-0038. Hear the monthly price, the install, the agreement, and the Chapter 70 reminder if you are in the City of Atlanta. SafeStreets installs. ADT monitors 24/7. Chief Schierbaum’s 98 homicides, 43 percent decline, 7 percent overall drop, robberies and aggravated assaults up, car break-ins down roughly 15 percent, and 1,097 repeat-offender arrests are 2025 citywide APD. They are not a sensor. They are not a reason to skip the door. They are not a reason to fear-buy a pole.
Atlanta homeowners can trust a SafeStreets security system monitored by ADT. Home Alarm Systems Atlanta is the dealer line. homealarmsystemsatlanta.com is the site. We cite the chief. Then we sell occupancy. Empty house. Tried door. Porch box. Leftover keypad. School-day hours. Georgia Power outages. That is the product. The 470 call is the order.