Palos Verdes Estates, CA has a A+ safety grade (91/100) with a violent crime rate of 24 per 100,000, 93% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Palos Verdes Estates (12,432 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then CA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Palos Verdes Estates, CA carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 93% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Palos Verdes Estates, CA shows violent crime at 24.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 788.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 93% 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.
Small-count caution
Palos Verdes Estates reported 3 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 12,432. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Position in the state cohort
At 24.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Palos Verdes Estates ranks 455 of 458 — above 3 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -92.8% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Palos Verdes Estates's 24.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are San Marino (33.9), Villa Park (35.6), Holtville (36.1), Canyon Lake (45.0). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.0% of the 101 Part I offenses reported in Palos Verdes Estates for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 14.1 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
Larceny-theft is 53.1% of reported property offenses in Palos Verdes Estates, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (33) and motor vehicle theft (13). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 30.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 24.1 in 2024 (-20.0%). The highest observed value was 38.3 in 2021 and the lowest 8.0 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Palos Verdes Estates'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.
Based on 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 12,432. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 4.8 Census sq mi, Palos Verdes Estates logged 20.5 property and 0.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Palos Verdes Estates leans on larceny-theft at 51% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,889.
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Palos Verdes Estates offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 98 | 788.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 52 | 418.3 |
| Burglary | 33 | 265.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 13 | 104.6 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 3 | 24.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 2 | 16.1 |
| Rape | 1 | 8 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 13,255 | 30.2 | 648.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 13,044 | 38.3 | 1073.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 12,767 | 31.3 | 1080.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 12,541 | 8 | 1323.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,432 | 24.1 | 788.3 |
Palos Verdes Estates Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Palos Verdes Estates's 101 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 California cities closest to Palos Verdes Estates in population. Their populations run from 12,216 to 12,692, against 12,432 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Palos Verdes Estates sits at 24.1/100K violent (grade A+); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Palos Verdes Estates at 24.1/100K violent and 788.3/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
24.1/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
788.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Palos Verdes Estates reported 3 violent crimes and 98 property crimes, for a total of 101 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Palos Verdes Estates's violent crime rate increased by 201.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 40.4%.
The most common crime type in Palos Verdes Estates is larceny-theft, accounting for 51.5% of all reported crimes (52 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Palos Verdes Estates figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Palos Verdes Estates's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Palos Verdes Estates, CA 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. Palos Verdes Estates is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,432 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.