Atwater, CA has a F safety grade (11/100) with a violent crime rate of 710 per 100,000, 102% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Atwater (32,093 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then CA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Atwater, CA carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 102% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Atwater, CA shows violent crime at 710.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,193.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 102% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 710.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Atwater ranks 52 of 458 — above 406 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +116.3% against the cohort median of 328.5. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Atwater's 710.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Pomona (715.9), Yreka (704.0), Gardena (703.3), Chico (699.2). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 511.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 710.4 in 2024 (+38.8%). The highest observed value was 849.0 in 2022 and the lowest 511.7 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 24.5% of the 932 Part I offenses reported in Atwater for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 7.4 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 79.7% of reported property offenses in Atwater, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (87) and motor vehicle theft (56). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Atwater's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 6.6 Census sq mi, Atwater logged 107.2 property and 34.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Atwater's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (60% of 932 offenses; mix index 4,175).
Violent offenses are 24% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Atwater offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.6 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 704 | 2193.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 561 | 1748 |
| Burglary | 87 | 271.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 56 | 174.5 |
| Arson | 21 | 65.4 |
| Violent Crime | 228 | 710.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 190 | 592 |
| Rape | 18 | 56.1 |
| Robbery | 18 | 56.1 |
| Murder | 2 | 6.2 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 29,704 | 511.7 | 3043.4 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 30,470 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 32,157 | 849 | 2593.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 32,583 | 604.6 | 2479.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 32,093 | 710.4 | 2193.6 |
Atwater Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Atwater's 932 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the California cities closest to Atwater in population. Their populations run from 31,680 to 32,724, against 32,093 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Atwater sits at 710.4/100K violent (grade F); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Atwater at 710.4/100K violent and 2,193.6/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
710.4/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,193.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+17.5% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Atwater reported 228 violent crimes and 704 property crimes, for a total of 932 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Atwater's violent crime rate increased by 17.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 11.5%.
The most common crime type in Atwater is larceny-theft, accounting for 60.2% of all reported crimes (561 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Atwater figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Atwater's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Atwater, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Atwater is scored in the mid-size municipal band (32,093 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.