Palm Desert, CA has a C safety grade (43/100) with a violent crime rate of 324 per 100,000, 8% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Palm Desert, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 52,205 residents, Palm Desert 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.
Palm Desert, CA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 8% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Palm Desert, CA shows violent crime at 323.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,827.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 8% 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
323.7/100K violent
2827.3/100K property
-8% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Palm Desert, CA
Comparable rate records
Palm Desert's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Palm Desert's 323.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are American Canyon (325.5), Santa Paula (326.7), Grover Beach (320.1), Perris (327.6). 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 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 232.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 323.7 in 2024 (+39.4%). The highest observed value was 350.6 in 2022 and the lowest 232.3 in 2020. 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 10.3% of the 1,645 Part I offenses reported in Palm Desert for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California 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
Palm Desert sits mid-pack among comparable California cities
At 323.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Palm Desert ranks 235 of 458 — above 223 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -2.8% 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 Palm Desert'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.
Palm Desert's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 26.8 Census sq mi, Palm Desert logged 55.1 property and 6.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Palm Desert's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 1,645 offenses; mix index 5,016).
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (26.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-22.3%
3636.8 → 2827.3/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+16.4%
278.1 → 323.7/100K
Property offenses lead Palm Desert's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,476
2827.3
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,129
2162.6
-
Burglary
233
446.3
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
114
218.4
-
Arson
4
7.7
-
Violent Crime
169
323.7
352
Aggravated Assault
117
224.1
-
Robbery
41
78.5
-
Rape
11
21.1
-
Murder
0
0
-
Palm Desert 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.
Palm Desert 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 averages
Palm Desert Police Department
Reporting agency for Palm Desert Summary Reporting (SRS)
Palm Desert Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Palm Desert's 1,645 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 Palm Desert in population. Their populations run from 51,054 to 53,397, against 52,205 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Palm Desert at 323.7/100K violent and 2,827.3/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Palm Desert reported 169 violent crimes and 1,476 property crimes, for a total of 1,645 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Palm Desert?
From 2023 to 2024, Palm Desert's violent crime rate increased by 16.4%, and the property crime rate decreased by 22.3%.
What is the most common crime in Palm Desert?
The most common crime type in Palm Desert is larceny-theft, accounting for 68.6% of all reported crimes (1,129 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Palm Desert'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 Palm Desert, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.