Hercules, CA has a A safety grade (77/100) with a violent crime rate of 168 per 100,000, 52% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Hercules (26,739 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
Hercules, CA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 52% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Hercules, CA shows violent crime at 168.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 673.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 52% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Hercules's 168.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ripon (168.2), Hughson (167.8), Glendora (168.9), Laguna Beach (167.3). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 113.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 168.3 in 2024 (+48.8%). The highest observed value was 212.6 in 2023 and the lowest 113.1 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 168.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Hercules ranks 364 of 458 — above 94 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -49.5% against the cohort median of 333.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Hercules'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 6.4 Census sq mi, Hercules logged 28.1 property and 7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Hercules leans on larceny-theft at 56% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,728.
Violent offenses are 20% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Hercules offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.4 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 | 180 | 673.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 126 | 471.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 36 | 134.6 |
| Burglary | 18 | 67.3 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 45 | 168.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 36 | 134.6 |
| Robbery | 9 | 33.7 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
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 | 26,524 | 113.1 | 904.8 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 26,439 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 26,157 | 141.5 | 841.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 25,876 | 212.6 | 614.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 26,739 | 168.3 | 673.2 |
Hercules Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Hercules's 225 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 Hercules in population. Their populations run from 26,099 to 27,559, against 26,739 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Hercules sits at 168.3/100K violent (grade A); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Hercules at 168.3/100K violent and 673.2/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
168.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
673.2/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-20.8% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Hercules reported 45 violent crimes and 180 property crimes, for a total of 225 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Hercules's violent crime rate decreased by 20.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 9.6%.
The most common crime type in Hercules is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.0% of all reported crimes (126 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Hercules 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 Hercules's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Hercules, 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. Hercules is scored in the mid-size municipal band (26,739 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.