Santa Cruz, CA has a F safety grade (17/100) with a violent crime rate of 613 per 100,000, 74% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Santa Cruz, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 61,346 residents, Santa Cruz 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.
Santa Cruz, CA carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 74% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Santa Cruz, CA shows violent crime at 612.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,515.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 74% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
F safety grade
612.9/100K violent
2515.2/100K property
+74% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Santa Cruz, CA
Comparable rate records
Santa Cruz's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Santa Cruz's 612.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Bellflower (613.1), East Palo Alto (607.3), San Jose (606.8), Antioch (606.8). 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
Santa Cruz reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable California cities
At 612.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Santa Cruz ranks 82 of 458 — above 376 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +86.6% 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 474.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 612.9 in 2024 (+29.1%). The highest observed value was 725.1 in 2022 and the lowest 474.9 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft dominates the property total more than it does across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 88.3% of reported property offenses in Santa Cruz, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (83) and motor vehicle theft (97). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Santa Cruz'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.
Santa Cruz's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 12.7 Census sq mi, Santa Cruz logged 121.1 property and 29.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Santa Cruz's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (71% of 1,919 offenses; mix index 5,326).
Violent offenses are 20% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (12.7 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
-6.3%
654.2 → 612.9/100K
Property Crime Rate
-0.4%
2526.2 → 2515.2/100K
Property offenses lead Santa Cruz's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,543
2515.2
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,363
2221.8
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
97
158.1
-
Burglary
83
135.3
-
Arson
46
75
-
Violent Crime
376
612.9
352
Aggravated Assault
284
462.9
-
Robbery
63
102.7
-
Rape
26
42.4
-
Murder
3
4.9
-
Santa Cruz 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.
Santa Cruz 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
Santa Cruz Police Department
Reporting agency for Santa Cruz NIBRS-participating
Santa Cruz Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Santa Cruz's 1,919 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.
Similar-Size Cities in California
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the California cities closest to Santa Cruz in population. Their populations run from 60,335 to 62,363, against 61,346 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Santa Cruz at 612.9/100K violent and 2,515.2/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Santa Cruz reported 376 violent crimes and 1,543 property crimes, for a total of 1,919 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Santa Cruz?
From 2023 to 2024, Santa Cruz's violent crime rate decreased by 6.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 0.4%.
What is the most common crime in Santa Cruz?
The most common crime type in Santa Cruz is larceny-theft, accounting for 71.0% of all reported crimes (1,363 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Santa Cruz'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 Santa Cruz, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.