Costa Mesa, CA has a F safety grade (5/100) with a violent crime rate of 738 per 100,000, 110% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 107,235 residents, Costa Mesa is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against CA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Costa Mesa, CA carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 110% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Costa Mesa, CA shows violent crime at 737.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,836.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 110% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 430.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 737.6 in 2024 (+71.3%). The highest observed value was 737.6 in 2024 and the lowest 368.1 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 737.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Costa Mesa ranks 45 of 458 — above 413 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +124.6% 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 Costa Mesa's 737.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Hawaiian Gardens (736.4), Dos Palos (739.0), Dunsmuir (739.4), Vallejo (739.8). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 20.6% of the 3,833 Part I offenses reported in Costa Mesa for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 3.5 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 counts dominate Costa Mesa'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 15.8 Census sq mi, Costa Mesa logged 192.5 property and 50 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Costa Mesa's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (61% of 3,833 offenses; mix index 4,189).
Violent offenses are 21% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Costa Mesa offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (15.8 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 | 3,042 | 2836.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,341 | 2183.1 |
| Burglary | 398 | 371.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 303 | 282.6 |
| Arson | 29 | 27 |
| Violent Crime | 791 | 737.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 642 | 598.7 |
| Robbery | 80 | 74.6 |
| Rape | 66 | 61.5 |
| Murder | 3 | 2.8 |
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 | 113,317 | 430.7 | 3188.4 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 112,592 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 109,785 | 589.3 | 3577 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 108,401 | 368.1 | 2263.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 107,235 | 737.6 | 2836.8 |
Costa Mesa Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Costa Mesa's 3,833 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 Costa Mesa in population. Their populations run from 102,672 to 112,125, against 107,235 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Costa Mesa sits at 737.6/100K violent (grade F); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Costa Mesa at 737.6/100K violent and 2,836.8/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
737.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,836.8/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+100.4% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Costa Mesa reported 791 violent crimes and 3,042 property crimes, for a total of 3,833 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Costa Mesa's violent crime rate increased by 100.4%, and the property crime rate increased by 25.3%.
The most common crime type in Costa Mesa is larceny-theft, accounting for 61.1% of all reported crimes (2,341 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Costa Mesa's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Costa Mesa's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Costa Mesa, 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. Costa Mesa is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (107,235 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.