El Cajon, CA has a C safety grade (44/100) with a violent crime rate of 434 per 100,000, 23% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
El Cajon, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 101,983 residents, El Cajon 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.
El Cajon, CA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 23% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, El Cajon, CA shows violent crime at 434.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,500.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 23% 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
434.4/100K violent
1500.3/100K property
+23% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for El Cajon, CA
Comparable rate records
El Cajon's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to El Cajon's 434.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Escondido (433.5), Visalia (435.3), Westminster (436.2), Citrus Heights (439.3). 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.
Position in the state cohort
El Cajon sits mid-pack among comparable California cities
At 434.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, El Cajon ranks 167 of 458 — above 291 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +32.2% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 22.5% of the 1,973 Part I offenses reported in El Cajon for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 5.3 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 496.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 434.4 in 2024 (-12.6%). The highest observed value was 533.8 in 2021 and the lowest 434.4 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate El Cajon'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.
El Cajon's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 14.5 Census sq mi, El Cajon logged 105.4 property and 30.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
El Cajon leans on larceny-theft at 56% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,661.
Violent offenses are 22% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (14.5 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-8.9%
477 → 434.4/100K
Property Crime Rate
-3%
1546.8 → 1500.3/100K
Property offenses lead El Cajon's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs CA
Property Crime
1,530
1500.3
1985.9
Larceny-Theft
1,105
1083.5
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
268
262.8
-
Burglary
157
153.9
-
Arson
18
17.7
-
Violent Crime
443
434.4
476.8
Aggravated Assault
308
302
-
Robbery
108
105.9
-
Rape
27
26.5
-
Murder
0
0
-
El Cajon Crime Trend (2020-2024)
El Cajon property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
El Cajon Police Department
Reporting agency for El Cajon NIBRS-participating
El Cajon Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind El Cajon's 1,973 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
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 El Cajon in population. Their populations run from 99,929 to 103,164, against 101,983 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
El Cajon at 434.4/100K violent and 1,500.3/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, El Cajon reported 443 violent crimes and 1,530 property crimes, for a total of 1,973 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in El Cajon?
From 2023 to 2024, El Cajon's violent crime rate decreased by 8.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3%.
What is the most common crime in El Cajon?
The most common crime type in El Cajon is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.0% of all reported crimes (1,105 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: El Cajon'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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 El Cajon, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.