Palo Alto, CA Crime Rate & Safety

FBI UCR Data Snapshot: Palo Alto, CA

Palo Alto, CA, reporting population 65,079 in 2024, recorded 138 violent crimes and 1,974 property crimes in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's Table 8 city-level submissions. The city's violent crime rate works out to 212 per 100,000 residents, while the property crime rate reaches 3033.2 per 100,000. Combining those two rates against national benchmarks yields a composite safety grade of C (Average), scoring 52 out of 100.

Within the violent crime count, aggravated assault accounted for 77 incidents, robbery 35, murder 1, and rape 25 in 2024. Property crime splits into larceny-theft (1,707), burglary (147), and motor vehicle theft (120); the FBI UCR Program tracks arson (7) as a separate offense category, so it is not included in the property crime total above. Larceny-theft and other property offenses typically dominate city crime counts, and larceny-theft leads Palo Alto's mix at 80.8% of all Part I offenses.

Against the national violent crime average, Palo Alto runs 40% below the US benchmark, and 56% below the California statewide rate. Translated to per-capita risk, the 2024 figures imply roughly a 1 in 31 statistical chance of being named in a crime report that year, narrowing to 1 in 472 for a violent offense. UCR figures reflect offenses reported to and submitted by local law enforcement and may undercount unreported crime.

These figures come from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which compiles offenses voluntarily submitted by local law enforcement agencies. Rates are expressed per 100,000 residents so a small town and a large city sit on the same scale, 50 burglaries mean something very different in a town of 2,000 than in a city of 500,000. Two caveats matter when reading any city's numbers. First, a year with missing or partial agency reporting can understate true crime, so a sudden drop sometimes reflects a reporting gap rather than a real safety gain. Second, UCR counts reported offenses, not convictions, and many crimes are never reported at all. Treat a grade as one input among several, not a final verdict on a place.