Desert Hot Springs, CA has a C safety grade (41/100) with a violent crime rate of 492 per 100,000, 40% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Desert Hot Springs, CA Crime Rate & Safety
Desert Hot Springs (33,749 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then CA and national benchmarks.
Desert Hot Springs, CA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 40% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Desert Hot Springs, CA shows violent crime at 491.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,200 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 40% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
C safety grade
491.9/100K violent
1200/100K property
+40% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Desert Hot Springs, CA
Comparable rate records
Desert Hot Springs's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Desert Hot Springs's 491.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Coalinga (491.6), Santa Ana (493.1), Farmersville (490.6), Whittier (490.5). 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
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 749.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 491.9 in 2024 (-34.4%). The highest observed value was 749.8 in 2020 and the lowest 488.1 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 29.1% of the 571 Part I offenses reported in Desert Hot Springs for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 12.0 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.
Position in the state cohort
Desert Hot Springs sits mid-pack among comparable California cities
At 491.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Desert Hot Springs ranks 132 of 458 — above 326 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +49.7% 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.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 45.9% of reported property offenses in Desert Hot Springs, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (92) and motor vehicle theft (127). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Desert Hot Springs'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.
Desert Hot Springs's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 30.1 Census sq mi, Desert Hot Springs logged 13.4 property and 5.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Desert Hot Springs's 8 active offense types stay diversified (mix index 2,260); larceny-theft still leads at 33%.
Violent offenses are 29% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (30.1 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-17.2%
1449.4 → 1200/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+0.8%
488.1 → 491.9/100K
Property offenses lead Desert Hot Springs's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs CA
Property Crime
405
1200
1985.9
Larceny-Theft
186
551.1
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
127
376.3
-
Burglary
92
272.6
-
Arson
2
5.9
-
Violent Crime
166
491.9
476.8
Aggravated Assault
113
334.8
-
Robbery
40
118.5
-
Rape
10
29.6
-
Murder
3
8.9
-
Desert Hot Springs Crime Trend (2020-2024)
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Desert Hot Springs property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Desert Hot Springs Police Department
Reporting agency for Desert Hot Springs NIBRS-participating
Desert Hot Springs Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Desert Hot Springs's 571 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.
Similar-Size Cities in California
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the California cities closest to Desert Hot Springs in population. Their populations run from 32,560 to 34,703, against 33,749 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Desert Hot Springs at 491.9/100K violent and 1,200/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
How many crimes were reported in Desert Hot Springs?
In 2024, Desert Hot Springs reported 166 violent crimes and 405 property crimes, for a total of 571 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Desert Hot Springs?
From 2023 to 2024, Desert Hot Springs's violent crime rate increased by 0.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 17.2%.
What is the most common crime in Desert Hot Springs?
The most common crime type in Desert Hot Springs is larceny-theft, accounting for 32.6% of all reported crimes (186 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Desert Hot Springs 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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Desert Hot Springs, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.