McAllen, TX has a B safety grade (69/100) with a violent crime rate of 150 per 100,000, 57% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 148,017 residents, McAllen is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against TX and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
McAllen, TX carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 57% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, McAllen, TX shows violent crime at 150 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,835.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 57% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 85.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 150.0 in 2024 (+76.3%). The highest observed value was 195.9 in 2022 and the lowest 85.1 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to McAllen's 150.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Floresville (149.6), Alpine (149.1), Stanton (151.0), Cibolo (148.8). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 92.9% of reported property offenses in McAllen, against a cohort median of 71.6%. The remainder is burglary (94) and motor vehicle theft (100). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 7.6% of the 2,939 Part I offenses reported in McAllen for 2024, against a median of 14.4% across comparable Texas cities — a gap of 6.8 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
At 150.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, McAllen ranks 397 of 686 — above 289 of the 685 other Texas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -16.6% against the cohort median of 179.9. 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 McAllen'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 62.4 Census sq mi, McAllen logged 43.6 property and 3.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
McAllen's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (86% of 2,939 offenses; mix index 7,415).
Violent offenses are only 8% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
McAllen offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (62.4 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 | 2,717 | 1835.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,523 | 1704.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 100 | 67.6 |
| Burglary | 94 | 63.5 |
| Arson | 9 | 6.1 |
| Violent Crime | 222 | 150 |
| Aggravated Assault | 125 | 84.4 |
| Rape | 58 | 39.2 |
| Robbery | 35 | 23.6 |
| Murder | 4 | 2.7 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 144,569 | 85.1 | 1931.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 144,973 | 178.7 | 1812.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 145,510 | 195.9 | 1960.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 145,684 | 144.1 | 1950.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 148,017 | 150 | 1835.6 |
McAllen Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind McAllen's 2,939 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Texas cities closest to McAllen in population. Their populations run from 133,471 to 161,667, against 148,017 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
McAllen sits at 150/100K violent (grade B); the Texas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
McAllen at 150/100K violent and 1,835.6/100K property - matched below outside Texas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
150/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,835.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+4.1% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, McAllen reported 222 violent crimes and 2,717 property crimes, for a total of 2,939 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, McAllen's violent crime rate increased by 4.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 5.9%.
The most common crime type in McAllen is larceny-theft, accounting for 85.8% of all reported crimes (2,523 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: McAllen'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 McAllen's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 McAllen, TX 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. McAllen is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (148,017 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.