Crime in Arcata, California
Major crime in Arcata is 13% above the U.S. rate per resident: 24% higher for persons crimes and 11% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 7.5% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
Check an address in Arcata
Drugs and alcohol stands out most, at 3.1 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Arcata for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Arcata
The middle half of Arcata residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 54 and 120; the typical (median) resident's is 70. The citywide figure (113) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5023.0%
- 50–10041.4%
- 100–20018.9%
- 200–40016.8%
- 400+0.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest at night
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 7.5% in a year; across California it fell 7.4%
Change in expected crimes, with California as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Arcata against U.S. places with 10,000 to 25,000 residents
529 of the 2,149 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Arcata; the middle of the group is 72. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Arcata has a higher major-crime index than 6 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, McKinleyville (5 mi), is 54% below Arcata's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Arcata
What are the most common crimes in Arcata?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 98 a year), theft from vehicle (about 76 a year) and shoplifting (about 71 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 3.1 times the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Arcata's figures add up its 12 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Arcata's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 13.1% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 19,142. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Arcata, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/arcata
Use these numbers in your product
Any U.S. address by API or MCP, free for 10,000 lookups a month.
Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- McKinleyville5 mi52
- Myrtletown6 mi88
- Eureka8 mi147
- Pine Hills12 mi49
- Humboldt Hill12 mi55
- Fortuna20 mi81
- Rio Dell27 mi77
- Crescent City64 mi169