Union City, CA has a C safety grade (40/100) with a violent crime rate of 408 per 100,000, 16% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 63,976 residents, Union City 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.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Union City, CA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 16% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Union City, CA shows violent crime at 408 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,235.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 16% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Union City's 408.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Escalon (410.0), La Puente (410.5), Galt (410.8), Ventura (410.9). 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 297.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 408.0 in 2024 (+37.1%). The highest observed value was 478.6 in 2023 and the lowest 297.5 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 is 56.8% of reported property offenses in Union City, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (187) and motor vehicle theft (431). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 408.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Union City ranks 185 of 458 — above 273 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +24.2% 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 Union City'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.
Across 19.4 Census sq mi, Union City logged 73.7 property and 13.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Union City leans on larceny-theft at 48% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,202.
Violent offenses are 15% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Union City offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (19.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 1,430 | 2235.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 812 | 1269.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 431 | 673.7 |
| Burglary | 187 | 292.3 |
| Arson | 16 | 25 |
| Violent Crime | 261 | 408 |
| Aggravated Assault | 171 | 267.3 |
| Robbery | 77 | 120.4 |
| Rape | 11 | 17.2 |
| Murder | 2 | 3.1 |
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 · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 74,625 | 297.5 | 2567.5 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 75,009 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 66,947 | 331.6 | 2570.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 65,613 | 478.6 | 3174.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 63,976 | 408 | 2235.2 |
Union City Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Union City's 1,691 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 Union City in population. Their populations run from 62,089 to 65,483, against 63,976 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Union City sits at 408/100K violent (grade C); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Union City at 408/100K violent and 2,235.2/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
408/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,235.2/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-14.8% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Union City reported 261 violent crimes and 1,430 property crimes, for a total of 1,691 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Union City's violent crime rate decreased by 14.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 29.6%.
The most common crime type in Union City is larceny-theft, accounting for 48.0% of all reported crimes (812 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Union City'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.
Large-city rate methodology for how Union City's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Union City, 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. Union City is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (63,976 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.