Ontario, CA has a C safety grade (57/100) with a violent crime rate of 272 per 100,000, 23% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Ontario, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 184,763 residents, Ontario 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.
Ontario, CA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 23% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Ontario, CA shows violent crime at 272.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,817.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 23% below 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
272.2/100K violent
1817.5/100K property
-23% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Ontario, CA
Comparable rate records
Ontario's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Ontario's 272.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Moreno Valley (272.5), Petaluma (271.8), Azusa (270.7), Monterey Park (274.1). 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 lower
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 365.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 272.2 in 2024 (-25.6%). The highest observed value was 365.9 in 2020 and the lowest 272.2 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
Ontario sits mid-pack among comparable California cities
At 272.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Ontario ranks 280 of 458 — above 178 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -18.3% 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.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 13.0% of the 3,861 Part I offenses reported in Ontario for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 4.1 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
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 61.3% of reported property offenses in Ontario, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (441) and motor vehicle theft (860). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Ontario'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.
Ontario's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 50 Census sq mi, Ontario logged 67.2 property and 10.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Ontario leans on larceny-theft at 53% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,534.
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (50 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Both rates shifted (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-20%
340.4 → 272.2/100K
Property Crime Rate
-21.5%
2316.1 → 1817.5/100K
Property offenses lead Ontario's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs CA
Property Crime
3,358
1817.5
1985.9
Larceny-Theft
2,057
1113.3
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
860
465.5
-
Burglary
441
238.7
-
Arson
23
12.4
-
Violent Crime
503
272.2
476.8
Aggravated Assault
275
148.8
-
Robbery
143
77.4
-
Rape
81
43.8
-
Murder
4
2.2
-
Ontario Crime Trend (2020-2024)
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Ontario property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averagesRead the chart as a list
Ontario: 272 violent, 1818 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Glendale: 287 violent, 2027 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Huntington Beach: 207 violent, 1989 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Elk Grove: 190 violent, 1232 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Santa Rosa: 343 violent, 1320 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Rancho Cucamonga: 294 violent, 1811 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Oxnard: 596 violent, 1877 property per 100,000 (grade F)
Oceanside: 459 violent, 1672 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Garden Grove: 277 violent, 1759 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Ontario Police Department
Reporting agency for Ontario Summary Reporting (SRS)
Ontario Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Ontario's 3,861 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Similar-Size Cities in California
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the California cities closest to Ontario in population. Their populations run from 167,041 to 197,361, against 184,763 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Ontario at 272.2/100K violent and 1,817.5/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Ontario reported 503 violent crimes and 3,358 property crimes, for a total of 3,861 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Ontario?
From 2023 to 2024, Ontario's violent crime rate decreased by 20%, and the property crime rate decreased by 21.5%.
What is the most common crime in Ontario?
The most common crime type in Ontario is larceny-theft, accounting for 53.3% of all reported crimes (2,057 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Ontario'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 Ontario, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.