State crime profile · 2024

New Mexico Crime Rates: Safest & Most Dangerous Cities

Crime data for 43 cities and 19 counties in New Mexico (NM), ranked safest to most dangerous from 135 reporting agencies.

696.9
Violent / 100K
2,705.6
Property / 100K
43
Cities
19
Counties

The verdict

New Mexico's 696.9 violent crimes per 100,000 runs 98% above the U.S. average, making it among the highest-crime states in the country.

696.9
violent crimes per 100K
+98%
vs. the U.S. average
49th
safest of 51 states & DC
2,705.6
property crimes per 100K

How safe is New Mexico? FBI UCR data snapshot

New Mexico (NM) reported 14,845 violent crimes and 57,637 property crimes in 2024, based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program submissions from 135 law enforcement agencies. That translates to a statewide violent crime rate of 696.9 per 100,000 residents and a property crime rate of 2705.6 per 100,000 against a reporting population of 2,130,256. The PlainCrime dataset indexes 43 New Mexico cities and 19 counties, each with their own detail pages and local crime figures drawn from FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10.

The FBI's state-level summary reports violent and property crime as aggregate totals rather than broken out by individual offense type (murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson). For an offense-by-offense breakdown, see the individual city and county pages for New Mexico below, which draw on FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10 and do report each offense type separately.

Across 11 years of state-level UCR history (2014–2024), the violent crime rate moved from 570.9 to 696.9 per 100,000, a rise of 22.1%. City-level detail pages within New Mexico include safety grades (A+ to F), benchmarks against national averages, per-capita risk estimates, and multi-year trend tables for users comparing specific jurisdictions. All figures above are drawn from FBI UCR 2024 submissions; reporting completeness varies by agency, and the FBI periodically restates prior-year figures as late submissions arrive.

State figures roll up the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) submissions from local and county agencies across the state, then express them per 100,000 residents so one state can be compared with another. Statewide averages hide a great deal of variation: a handful of large cities often account for much of a state's reported violent crime, while most of its land area and population live with markedly lower rates. Reporting completeness also differs between states, so a year-over-year change can reflect which agencies filed data as much as any real shift on the ground. Read a state number as the broad backdrop, then drill into the city and county pages for the local detail that actually shapes day-to-day decisions.

Violent Crime Rate
696.9/100K
Property Crime Rate
2705.6/100K
Population
2,130,256
Data Year
2024

How New Mexico ranks nationally

New Mexico vs. every U.S. state

Violent crime per 100,000 residents, FBI UCR 2024. Lower is safer.

697 4th percentile among 51 U.S. states

NM 0 1,100+ every state & DC, bucketed by value

Each bar is a band of values; taller bars hold more U.S. states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · 2024

Safest Cities

Top 50 by lowest violent crime rate

Most Dangerous Cities

Top 50 by highest violent crime rate

Crime Trends

Multi-year charts & analysis

Year Population Violent Crime Rate Property Crime Rate
2024 2,130,256 14,845 696.9 57,637 2705.6
2023 2,114,371 14,968 707.9 58,431 2763.5
2022 2,113,344 15,764 745.9 60,068 2842.3
2021 2,115,877 15,385 727.1 52,315 2472.5
2020 2,106,319 15,225 722.8 55,413 2630.8
2019 2,096,829 15,659 746.8 62,339 2973
2018 2,095,428 16,420 783.6 70,094 3345.1
2017 2,088,070 16,125 772.2 80,467 3853.7
2016 2,081,015 13,802 663.2 80,973 3891
2015 2,085,109 12,632 605.8 76,739 3680.3
2014 2,085,572 11,906 570.9 73,460 3522.3

Cities in New Mexico

Safest cities in New Mexico

Cities with 25,000+ residents, lowest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K

What this shows Rio Rancho is the safest sizeable city in New Mexico, at 318.2 violent crimes per 100,000.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024

Highest violent-crime cities in New Mexico

Cities with 25,000+ residents, highest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K

What this shows Albuquerque reports the highest big-city violent-crime rate in New Mexico, at 1,181.8 per 100,000.

Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024
New Mexico's largest cities, violent vs. property crime. X axis violent crime per 100K, Y axis property crime per 100K, split by the national averages. 9 cities; the anchor is ringed. New Mexico's largest cities, violent vs. property crime 286 1,276 Violent crime per 100K → 1,205 5,569 Property crime per 100K → Albuquerque Las Cruces Rio Rancho Santa Fe SAFEST HIGHEST CRIME Safety grade A / B C D / F
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are New Mexico's statewide averages · the four largest cities are labeled
City Population Violent / 100K Grade
Albuquerque 558,745 1,181.8 F
Las Cruces 115,977 720 F
Rio Rancho 112,817 318.2 C
Santa Fe 89,652 842.1 F
Roswell 46,677 848.4 F
Farmington 46,150 951.2 F
Hobbs 38,972 790.3 F
Alamogordo 31,401 334.4 C
Carlsbad 31,243 524.9 F
Gallup 20,019 1,503.6 F
Los Lunas 19,707 583.5 F
Los Alamos 19,609 56.1 A+
Sunland Park 17,996 327.9 B
Las Vegas 12,816 655.4 F
Artesia 12,152 493.7 D
Portales 11,772 781.5 F
Bernalillo 9,144 481.2 C
Grants 8,953 424.4 C
Anthony 8,733 80.2 A+
Corrales 8,653 231.1 B
Belen 7,508 1,158.8 F
Bloomfield 7,330 709.4 F
Taos 6,406 936.6 F
Edgewood 6,113 392.6 C
Aztec 6,109 458.3 C
Truth or Consequences 5,985 818.7 F
Raton 5,961 469.7 C
Bosque Farms 4,094 146.6 A
Peralta 3,452 144.8 A
Eunice 2,904 482.1 D
Santa Rosa 2,743 473.9 C
Tularosa 2,614 114.8 A
Clayton 2,559 508 C
Milan 2,456 203.6 B
Lordsburg 2,164 831.8 D
Jal 2,075 0 A+
Bayard 2,046 537.6 D
Questa 1,797 389.5 C
Santa Clara 1,598 187.7 B
Hatch 1,575 571.4 D
Capitan 1,391 215.7 B
Hurley 1,221 0 A+
Red River 535 0 A+

Counties in New Mexico

Largest counties in New Mexico, violent crime per 100K

Top 8 counties by population, violent crime per 100,000 residents. Hover a bar for the exact rate.

/100K
Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program As of 2024

Nearby States

Compare New Mexico with neighboring states, or use the compare tool for side-by-side jurisdiction benchmarking.

Primary source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States annual release. State-level trends cross-check against the FBI Crime Data Explorer (CDE) API.

Population figures for rate calculations reference U.S. Census Bureau estimates where FBI-reported populations are unavailable. Verify with Census.gov QuickFacts.

Using PlainCrime rankings responsibly

Crime rankings are most useful when they sit alongside other community-quality signals, school performance, housing affordability, employment, and access to healthcare. A safer-than-average violent-crime rate in a small commuter suburb does not by itself make a city a better place to live; it is one data point among many. Likewise, a higher-than-average rate in a dense urban center may reflect that residents and visitors interact with police more often, not that the city is necessarily unsafe for its residents. We provide cross-links from each city profile to neighboring jurisdictions, state averages, and national benchmarks so you can read each number in context rather than in isolation.

For news outlets, researchers, and concerned residents who cite our rankings, the most defensible approach is to quote the per-100,000 rate, the reporting year, and the source agency in the same sentence. Avoid framing crime statistics as predictive, UCR data describes what was reported in a past year, not what will happen tomorrow. Where possible, pair our rankings with longitudinal trend data on the relevant city's profile page to show whether the rate is moving up, holding steady, or falling year over year.

Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.