Crime in El Centro, California
Major crime in El Centro is 48% below the U.S. rate per resident: 7% lower for persons crimes and 58% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 11.9% 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 El Centro 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 Centro
The middle half of El Centro residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 22 and 69; the typical (median) resident's is 45.
- 0–5066.2%
- 50–10029.4%
- 100–2001.2%
- 200–4003.2%
- 400+0.0%
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 fell 11.9% 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 Centro against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
701 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than El Centro; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
El Centro 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, Imperial (4 mi), is 63% below El Centro's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in El Centro
What are the most common crimes in El Centro?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are aggravated assault (about 100 a year), other larceny (about 68 a year) and motor vehicle theft (about 68 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. El Centro's figures add up its 27 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- El Centro's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 55.0% 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: 43,801. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in El Centro, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/el-centro
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Imperial4 mi19
- Heber4 mi38
- Calexico9 mi59
- Holtville11 mi31
- Brawley13 mi64
- Calipatria26 mi26
- Salton City44 mi41
- Somerton, AZ51 mi22