New Mexico: The Best and Worst Cities for Crime

Statewide Crime Trends in New Mexico

New Mexico has the nation’s highest overall violent crime rate, about 20 points higher than second-ranked Alaska, and the nation’s third-highest property crime rate behind Washington and Colorado.

While it stands out for all the wrong reasons when compared to all states, New Mexico’s crime rates are somewhat in keeping with its region. The West is home to four of the top 10 states for violent crime and seven of the top 10 for property crime.

Property Crime in New Mexico

When determining property crime rates in New Mexico, we looked at larceny-theft, burglary and motor vehicle theft incidents:

• New Mexico’s total property crime rate per 100,000 people is 2,984, which is more than 50 percent higher than the overall United States rate of 1,954 per 100,000.
• New Mexico ranks third among all states for property crime, about 50 points ahead of fourth-place Oregon.
• The state also has the highest rate of burglary and the fourth-highest rate of auto theft.
• Larceny continues to be the most common property crime in New Mexico as it is everywhere else in the country, with about 1,838 incidents per 100,000 people:

Violent Crime in New Mexico

Violent crimes include murder/nonnegligent homicide, aggravated assault, rape and robbery and, while they are much less common than property crimes, New Mexico does have the highest rate of such incidents among the 50 states:

• New Mexico’s overall violent crime rate is 781 per 100,000 people, more than double the national rate.
• New Mexico ranks first with a rate that’s 22 points higher than the next highest, which is Alaska.
• The state has the second-highest rate of both murder/homicide and aggravated assault and the fourth-highest rate of robbery.

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.