Santa Maria, CA has a F safety grade (18/100) with a violent crime rate of 661 per 100,000, 88% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Santa Maria, CA Crime Rate & Safety
At 110,056 residents, Santa Maria 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 Maria, CA carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 88% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Santa Maria, CA shows violent crime at 660.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,882.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 88% 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
660.6/100K violent
1882.7/100K property
+88% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Santa Maria, CA
Comparable rate records
Santa Maria's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the California cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Santa Maria's 660.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Modesto (655.7), Cudahy (654.2), Culver City (667.3), Santa Barbara (648.3). 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.
Position in the state cohort
Santa Maria reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable California cities
At 660.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Santa Maria ranks 67 of 458 — above 391 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +101.1% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 26.0% of the 2,799 Part I offenses reported in Santa Maria for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 8.9 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 771.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 660.6 in 2024 (-14.3%). The highest observed value was 771.2 in 2020 and the lowest 559.7 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 61.1% of reported property offenses in Santa Maria, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (344) and motor vehicle theft (463). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Santa Maria'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 Maria's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 22.8 Census sq mi, Santa Maria logged 90.8 property and 31.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Santa Maria leans on larceny-theft at 45% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,796.
Violent offenses are 26% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (22.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-21.2%
2390.4 → 1882.7/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+6.5%
620 → 660.6/100K
Property offenses lead Santa Maria's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
2,072
1882.7
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,265
1149.4
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
463
420.7
-
Burglary
344
312.6
-
Arson
75
68.1
-
Violent Crime
727
660.6
352
Aggravated Assault
458
416.2
-
Robbery
191
173.5
-
Rape
75
68.1
-
Murder
3
2.7
-
Santa Maria Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Santa Maria property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Santa Maria Police Department
Reporting agency for Santa Maria NIBRS-participating
Santa Maria Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Santa Maria's 2,799 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 Santa Maria in population. Their populations run from 104,467 to 113,418, against 110,056 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Santa Maria at 660.6/100K violent and 1,882.7/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Santa Maria reported 727 violent crimes and 2,072 property crimes, for a total of 2,799 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Santa Maria?
From 2023 to 2024, Santa Maria's violent crime rate increased by 6.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 21.2%.
What is the most common crime in Santa Maria?
The most common crime type in Santa Maria is larceny-theft, accounting for 45.2% of all reported crimes (1,265 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Santa Maria'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 Maria, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.