Pismo Beach, CA has a C safety grade (46/100) with a violent crime rate of 367 per 100,000, 4% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Pismo Beach is a small municipal reporter (7,910 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with CA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Pismo Beach, CA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 4% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Pismo Beach, CA shows violent crime at 366.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,010.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 4% above 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.
Small-count caution
Pismo Beach reported 29 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 7,910. 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Pismo Beach's 366.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rio Dell (365.5), Paso Robles (364.3), La Habra (363.0), Upland (370.3). 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
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 680.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 366.6 in 2024 (-46.1%). The highest observed value was 1185.3 in 2022 and the lowest 366.6 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 90.6% of reported property offenses in Pismo Beach, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (7) and motor vehicle theft (8). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 366.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Pismo Beach ranks 209 of 458 — above 249 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +11.6% against the cohort median of 328.5. 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 Pismo Beach'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 29 reported violent incidents in a population of 7,910. 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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 3.5 Census sq mi, Pismo Beach logged 45.5 property and 8.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Pismo Beach's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (77% of 188 offenses; mix index 6,000).
Violent offenses are 15% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Pismo Beach offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (3.5 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 | 159 | 2010.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 144 | 1820.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 8 | 101.1 |
| Burglary | 7 | 88.5 |
| Arson | 2 | 25.3 |
| Violent Crime | 29 | 366.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 17 | 214.9 |
| Rape | 7 | 88.5 |
| Robbery | 4 | 50.6 |
| Murder | 1 | 12.6 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 8,226 | 680.8 | 3695.6 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 7,985 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 8,015 | 1185.3 | 3668.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 8,037 | 746.5 | 2986.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 7,910 | 366.6 | 2010.1 |
Pismo Beach Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Pismo Beach's 188 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Pismo Beach in population. Their populations run from 7,747 to 8,092, against 7,910 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Pismo Beach sits at 366.6/100K violent (grade C); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Pismo Beach reported 29 violent crimes and 159 property crimes, for a total of 188 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Pismo Beach's violent crime rate decreased by 50.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 32.7%.
The most common crime type in Pismo Beach is larceny-theft, accounting for 76.6% of all reported crimes (144 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Pismo Beach is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Pismo Beach's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Pismo Beach, 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. Pismo Beach is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (7,910 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.