Walnut Creek, CA has a C safety grade (47/100) with a violent crime rate of 281 per 100,000, 20% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 68,808 residents, Walnut Creek 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 2026-09-05
Walnut Creek, CA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 20% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Walnut Creek, CA shows violent crime at 280.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,897.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 20% below 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 128.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 280.5 in 2024 (+118.4%). The highest observed value was 301.0 in 2023 and the lowest 128.4 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Walnut Creek's 280.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Shafter (279.1), San Dimas (282.6), Cathedral City (283.3), Dixon (283.5). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 8.8% of the 2,187 Part I offenses reported in Walnut Creek for 2024, against a median of 17.1% across comparable California cities — a gap of 8.3 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 280.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Walnut Creek ranks 272 of 458 — above 186 of the 457 other California cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -15.8% 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 77.9% of reported property offenses in Walnut Creek, against a cohort median of 69.5%. The remainder is burglary (268) and motor vehicle theft (173). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Walnut Creek'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 19.8 Census sq mi, Walnut Creek logged 100.9 property and 9.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Walnut Creek's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (71% of 2,187 offenses; mix index 5,292).
Violent offenses are only 9% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Walnut Creek offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (19.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 1,994 | 2897.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,553 | 2257 |
| Burglary | 268 | 389.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 173 | 251.4 |
| Arson | 2 | 2.9 |
| Violent Crime | 193 | 280.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 117 | 170 |
| Robbery | 59 | 85.7 |
| Rape | 17 | 24.7 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
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 | 70,849 | 128.4 | 2916.1 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 70,519 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 69,417 | 227.6 | 3067 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 68,441 | 301 | 2760 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 68,808 | 280.5 | 2897.9 |
Walnut Creek Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Walnut Creek's 2,187 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 Walnut Creek in population. Their populations run from 66,593 to 71,689, against 68,808 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Walnut Creek sits at 280.5/100K violent (grade C); the California cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Walnut Creek at 280.5/100K violent and 2,897.9/100K property - matched below outside California (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
280.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,897.9/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-6.8% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Walnut Creek reported 193 violent crimes and 1,994 property crimes, for a total of 2,187 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Walnut Creek's violent crime rate decreased by 6.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 5%.
The most common crime type in Walnut Creek is larceny-theft, accounting for 71.0% of all reported crimes (1,553 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Walnut Creek'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 Walnut Creek's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Walnut Creek, CA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Walnut Creek, CA FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Walnut Creek is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (68,808 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.