Mission Viejo, CA has a A safety grade (80/100) with a violent crime rate of 99 per 100,000, 72% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Mission Viejo, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 89,699 residents, Mission Viejo 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.
Mission Viejo, CA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 72% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Mission Viejo, CA shows violent crime at 99.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,186.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 72% 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.
A safety grade
99.2/100K violent
1186.2/100K property
-72% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Mission Viejo, CA
Position in the state cohort
Mission Viejo reported a lower violent-crime rate than most comparable California cities
At 99.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Mission Viejo ranks 417 of 458 — above 41 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -70.2% 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.
Comparable rate records
Mission Viejo's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Mission Viejo's 99.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Moorpark (99.1), Rolling Hills Estates (100.5), Thousand Oaks (102.2), Lincoln (96.2). 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 75.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 99.2 in 2024 (+32.1%). The highest observed value was 144.0 in 2023 and the lowest 56.2 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 7.7% of the 1,153 Part I offenses reported in Mission Viejo for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 9.4 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft dominates the property total more than it does across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 82.4% of reported property offenses in Mission Viejo, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (97) and motor vehicle theft (90). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Mission Viejo'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.
Mission Viejo's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 17.7 Census sq mi, Mission Viejo logged 60.2 property and 5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Mission Viejo's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (76% of 1,153 offenses; mix index 5,947).
Violent offenses are only 8% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (17.7 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
-31.1%
144 → 99.2/100K
Property Crime Rate
-6.4%
1266.7 → 1186.2/100K
Property offenses lead Mission Viejo's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs CA
Property Crime
1,064
1186.2
1985.9
Larceny-Theft
877
977.7
-
Burglary
97
108.1
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
90
100.3
-
Arson
4
4.5
-
Violent Crime
89
99.2
476.8
Aggravated Assault
56
62.4
-
Robbery
29
32.3
-
Rape
4
4.5
-
Murder
0
0
-
Mission Viejo Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Mission Viejo 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
Mission Viejo Police Department
Reporting agency for Mission Viejo NIBRS-participating
Mission Viejo Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Mission Viejo's 1,153 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 Mission Viejo in population. Their populations run from 86,152 to 93,212, against 89,699 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Mission Viejo at 99.2/100K violent and 1,186.2/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Mission Viejo reported 89 violent crimes and 1,064 property crimes, for a total of 1,153 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Mission Viejo?
From 2023 to 2024, Mission Viejo's violent crime rate decreased by 31.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 6.4%.
What is the most common crime in Mission Viejo?
The most common crime type in Mission Viejo is larceny-theft, accounting for 76.1% of all reported crimes (877 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Mission Viejo'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 Mission Viejo, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.