Las Cruces, NM has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 720 per 100,000, 105% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Las Cruces, NM Crime Rate & Safety
At 115,977 residents, Las Cruces is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against NM and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Las Cruces, NM carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 105% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Las Cruces, NM shows violent crime at 720 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,873.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 105% 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.
F safety grade
720/100K violent
4873.4/100K property
+105% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Las Cruces, NM
Comparable rate records
Las Cruces's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the New Mexico cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Las Cruces's 720.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Bloomfield (709.4), Portales (781.5), Las Vegas (655.4), Hobbs (790.3). 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
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 531.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 720.0 in 2024 (+35.4%). The highest observed value was 720.0 in 2024 and the lowest 531.6 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
Las Cruces sits mid-pack among comparable New Mexico cities
At 720.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Las Cruces ranks 12 of 43 — above 31 of the 42 other New Mexico cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +50.8% against the cohort median of 477.6. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 12.9% of the 6,487 Part I offenses reported in Las Cruces for 2024, against a median of 21.6% across comparable New Mexico cities — a gap of 8.7 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 Las Cruces'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.
Las Cruces's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 76.9 Census sq mi, Las Cruces logged 73.5 property and 10.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Las Cruces's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (62% of 6,487 offenses; mix index 4,231).
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (76.9 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
+22.1%
589.6 → 720/100K
Property Crime Rate
-10.4%
5439.2 → 4873.4/100K
Property offenses lead Las Cruces's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
5,652
4873.4
1711
Larceny-Theft
3,993
3442.9
-
Burglary
855
737.2
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
804
693.2
-
Arson
10
8.6
-
Violent Crime
835
720
352
Aggravated Assault
687
592.4
-
Rape
67
57.8
-
Robbery
67
57.8
-
Murder
14
12.1
-
Las Cruces Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Las Cruces property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Las Cruces Police Department
Reporting agency for Las Cruces NIBRS-participating
Las Cruces Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Las Cruces's 6,487 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 New Mexico
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the New Mexico cities closest to Las Cruces in population. Their populations run from 20,019 to 112,817, against 115,977 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Las Cruces at 720/100K violent and 4,873.4/100K property - matched below outside New Mexico (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Las Cruces reported 835 violent crimes and 5,652 property crimes, for a total of 6,487 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Las Cruces?
From 2023 to 2024, Las Cruces's violent crime rate increased by 22.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 10.4%.
What is the most common crime in Las Cruces?
The most common crime type in Las Cruces is larceny-theft, accounting for 61.6% of all reported crimes (3,993 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Las Cruces'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 Las Cruces, NM rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.