ZIP code profile · 2024 county data

ZIP Code 88260

Lea County, New Mexico: Census demographics for this ZIP plus the containing county's FBI UCR crime rate.

Data updated 2026-09-05

877
Property rate /100K (county)
15,498
Population (ZIP)
138
Violent rate /100K (county)

Is ZIP code 88260 safe? Honest data snapshot

ZIP code 88260 sits within Lea County, NM, a county whose reported crime runs below the national average (see the county-level FBI figures below, not a ZIP-specific calculation).

Reported crime here runs well below the national average: 138 violent incidents and 877 property incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, per county-level agency submissions.

ZIP 88260 carries a Census-reported population of 15,498, ranking #2 of 11 ZIPs in Lea County, spread across 814.92 square miles (about 19 people per square mile). For a full breakdown of Lea County's crime categories and year-over-year trend, see the Lea County crime page linked below.

ZIP 88260 has no FBI-native crime rate (postal codes are not police jurisdictions). The property-led county proxy above is from Lea County agency submissions; see methodology for the ZCTA plurality map. Methodology.

ZIP 88260 Census context

These are ZIP/ZCTA demographic estimates, separate from the county-level FBI proxy above. They describe the local settlement, not a crime rate.

Median household income
$72,510
Median age
32.2 years
Owner-occupied homes
74%
Occupied homes
4,835
Median home value
$161,400
Bachelor's degree or higher
14.0%
Poverty rate
18.3%
Unemployment rate
5.9%

ZIP 88260's median home value of $161,400 sits higher than 53% of the 169 NM ZIPs with a reported value, roughly mid-range for the state.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2022 5-year ZCTA estimates (income, age, housing tenure, home value, education, and unemployment).

How useful is the county proxy for ZIP 88260?

Within the participating-agency records for Lea County, reported violent and property crime rates both sit below their U.S. benchmarks: violent crime is 61% below and property crime is 49% below. The two submitted measures point in the same direction, but they do not establish complete county coverage or turn the result into a ZIP-level rating for 88260. Both comparisons use the same 2024 county reporting population and FBI-submitted counts, so the two directions are internally comparable for this release, not evidence about a different year.

88260 is comparatively spread out at about 19 people per square mile. That settlement pattern may differ sharply from the county's population centers, another reason to use the county rates as regional context rather than a local estimate.

Lea County UCR book ZIP 88260 inherits

ZIP 88260 itself is about 19 people per Census sq mi across 814.9 sq mi (15,498 residents), a postal settlement fact independent of the county UCR proxy.

ZIP 88260's 15,498 residents are about 20.8% of the 2024 county reporting population (74,455), a large postal share of a county-wide rate.

Lea County's 2024 UCR book concentrates in larceny-theft (62% of 756 offenses; mix index 4,302). ZIP 88260 inherits that county mix, not a postal-native split.

Lea County 2024 vs 2023: violent counts +32% vs 2023; property counts +12% vs 2023. Year-over-year moves are county agency submissions, still not ZIP-native.

Lea County offense mix (2024)

Mix index is HHI × 10,000 on county offense-type shares. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero; still county-agency data, not a ZIP-native FBI table.

Nationwide peers for ZIP 88260

Similar county violent rate (~138/100K)

Similar Census population (~15,498)

County detail: Lea County · State atlas: New Mexico

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (ZIP population, land area, 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file, ACS 5-year estimates) and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States (CIUS) Table 10 (county-level crime, attributed via ZIP-to-county crosswalk).

Verify with Census.gov Geography and FBI.gov UCR.

Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

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 combines Census ZIP-level figures with a ZIP-to-county crosswalk to attribute FBI UCR crime data honestly, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.