San Juan Capistrano, CA has a B safety grade (74/100) with a violent crime rate of 165 per 100,000, 53% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
San Juan Capistrano, CA Crime Rate & Safety
San Juan Capistrano (34,620 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then CA and national benchmarks.
San Juan Capistrano, CA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 53% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, San Juan Capistrano, CA shows violent crime at 164.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,077.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 53% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
B safety grade
164.6/100K violent
1077.4/100K property
-53% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for San Juan Capistrano, CA
Comparable rate records
San Juan Capistrano's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to San Juan Capistrano's 164.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Bear Valley (164.6), Belmont (164.8), Rocklin (164.8), Santa Clarita (165.4). 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.
Position in the state cohort
San Juan Capistrano reported a lower violent-crime rate than most comparable California cities
At 164.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, San Juan Capistrano ranks 373 of 458 — above 85 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -50.6% 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 13.3% of the 430 Part I offenses reported in San Juan Capistrano for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 3.9 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 174.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 164.6 in 2024 (-5.7%). The highest observed value was 239.2 in 2022 and the lowest 119.6 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate San Juan Capistrano'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
San Juan Capistrano's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 14.4 Census sq mi, San Juan Capistrano logged 25.8 property and 4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
San Juan Capistrano leans on larceny-theft at 56% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,722.
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (14.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-29.6%
233.7 → 164.6/100K
Property Crime Rate
-8.2%
1174.2 → 1077.4/100K
Property offenses lead San Juan Capistrano's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs CA
Property Crime
373
1077.4
1985.9
Larceny-Theft
241
696.1
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
71
205.1
-
Burglary
61
176.2
-
Arson
17
49.1
-
Violent Crime
57
164.6
476.8
Aggravated Assault
39
112.7
-
Robbery
12
34.7
-
Rape
4
11.6
-
Murder
2
5.8
-
San Juan Capistrano Crime Trend (2020-2024)
San Juan Capistrano property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
San Juan Capistrano Police Department
Reporting agency for San Juan Capistrano NIBRS-participating
San Juan Capistrano Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind San Juan Capistrano's 430 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.
Similar-Size Cities in California
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the California cities closest to San Juan Capistrano in population. Their populations run from 33,539 to 35,759, against 34,620 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
San Juan Capistrano at 164.6/100K violent and 1,077.4/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
How many crimes were reported in San Juan Capistrano?
In 2024, San Juan Capistrano reported 57 violent crimes and 373 property crimes, for a total of 430 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in San Juan Capistrano?
From 2023 to 2024, San Juan Capistrano's violent crime rate decreased by 29.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 8.2%.
What is the most common crime in San Juan Capistrano?
The most common crime type in San Juan Capistrano is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.0% of all reported crimes (241 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: San Juan Capistrano 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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 San Juan Capistrano, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.