Crime in Costa Mesa, California
Major crime in Costa Mesa is 27% above the U.S. rate per resident: 21% higher for persons crimes and 28% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 15.2% 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.
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Drugs and alcohol stands out most, at 2.6 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Costa Mesa 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 Costa Mesa
The middle half of Costa Mesa residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 45 and 136; the typical (median) resident's is 78. The citywide figure (127) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5028.9%
- 50–10028.3%
- 100–20030.1%
- 200–4008.8%
- 400+4.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekend daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 15.2% 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.
Costa Mesa against U.S. places with 100,000 to 250,000 residents
102 of the 268 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Costa Mesa; the middle of the group is 109. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Costa Mesa has a higher major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Newport Beach (3 mi), is 31% below Costa Mesa's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Costa Mesa
What are the most common crimes in Costa Mesa?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 710 a year), shoplifting (about 531 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 318 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 2.6 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. Costa Mesa's figures add up its 75 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Costa Mesa's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 60.2% 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: 108,390. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Costa Mesa, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/costa-mesa
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Newport Beach3 mi87
- Fountain Valley4 mi101
- Huntington Beach6 mi88
- Santa Ana6 mi86
- Midway City7 mi110
- Tustin8 mi92
- Westminster8 mi123
- Irvine8 mi65