Crime in El Cajon, California
Major crime in El Cajon is 20% above the U.S. rate per resident: 1.8 times for persons crimes and 7% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are up 19.8% 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 3.9 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in El Cajon 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 El Cajon
The middle half of El Cajon residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 70 and 119; the typical (median) resident's is 93. The citywide figure (120) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5010.5%
- 50–10047.3%
- 100–20035.2%
- 200–4003.6%
- 400+3.3%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on Friday and Saturday nights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime rose 19.8% 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.
El Cajon against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
166 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than El Cajon; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
El Cajon has a higher major-crime index than 7 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Bostonia (1 mi), is 54% below El Cajon's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in El Cajon
What are the most common crimes in El Cajon?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 460 a year), aggravated assault (about 452 a year) and shoplifting (about 372 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 3.9 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. El Cajon's figures add up its 58 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- El Cajon's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 68.2% 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: 96,322. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in El Cajon, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/el-cajon
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Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Bostonia1 mi55
- Casa de Oro-Mount Helix3 mi41
- Rancho San Diego3 mi29
- Winter Gardens3 mi41
- Santee4 mi54
- La Mesa4 mi122
- Spring Valley5 mi32
- Lakeside5 mi31