California: The Best and Worst Cities for Crime

The tiny town of Colma, California, leads the nation in property crime.
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Derek Prall
July 22, 2024 Derek Prall Derek Prall , Home Security Expert | July 22, 2024
Statewide Crime Trends in California Property Crime in California Violent Crime in California

Data for the Los Angeles metro area were not available for this analysis, but California is home to several other major metro areas, where crime rates tend to be higher than in less-populated areas.

Indeed, some of California’s metro areas have some of the highest rates of certain crimes in the country. Bakersfield, for example, has the third-highest rate of motor vehicle theft among the roughly 300 metro areas with available data, and it also ranks 11th for burglary. Chico and Fresno are also near the top for certain crimes.

However, crime is not limited to major cities; as we mentioned, the tiny town of Colma, California, has the nation’s highest population-adjusted property crime rate. But three other California cities (Irwindale, Emeryville and Commerce) are in the top 10 for property crime.

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California is home to the property crime capital of the U.S. — the tiny town of Colma, California. Colma has the highest property crime rate in the country. In 2022, there were 4,929 property crimes per 10,000 residents. Colma also has California’s highest rate of violent crime: 273 per 10,000 residents, or about five times the state’s rate.

Colma’s property crime distinction has more to do with what’s in the town than it does with the risk of becoming a crime victim. Nicknamed the “City of Souls,” Colma is home to about a thousand more gravestones than living residents due to the several cemeteries within the town. The Bay Area town was founded as a necropolis in 1924, and today, only about 1,600 people reside there, giving rise to the cheeky slogan “It’s great to be alive in Colma.”

Property Crime in California

When determining property crime rates in California, we looked at larceny-theft, burglary and motor vehicle theft incidents.

  • California’s total property crime rate is 2,343 per 100,000 people, which is about 20 percent higher than the overall national rate, putting the state in ninth place.
  • Larceny continues to be the most common property crime in California, as it is everywhere else in the country, with nearly 1,500 incidents per 100,000 people.

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Violent Crime in California

Violent crimes include murder/nonnegligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape and robbery.

  • California’s violent crime rate is about 500 per 100,000 people, or nearly one-third above the overall national rate of 381 per 100,000.
  • The state is sixth in the country for violent crime, and in the Western region, it’s third behind only New Mexico and Alaska, which rank first and second, respectively, among all states.

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Our data

Our data comes from comprehensive reporting compiled by the FBI and accessed via the Crime Data Explorer website. Property and violent crime state figures were drawn from Table 5 of the 2022 Crime in the U.S. Report. Metropolitan figures were found in Table 6, Crime in the U.S. by Metropolitan Statistical Area. City-level figures were drawn from Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City. The population figures in that table are U.S. Census Bureau provisional estimates as of July 1, 2020.

Limitations: According to the FBI, the data in the publication tables may differ from those released on the Explorer Pages of the CDE. These variations are due to the difference in methodologies between the publication tables and data displayed on the CDE. Please note that crime statistics are not the sole measure of a city’s safety.

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