Crime in El Cerrito (Contra Costa County), California
Major crime in El Cerrito is 1.7 times the U.S. rate per resident: 21% higher for persons crimes and 1.8 times for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 10.5% 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.
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Robbery stands out most, at 3.5 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in El Cerrito 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 Cerrito
The middle half of El Cerrito residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 77 and 170; the typical (median) resident's is 99. The citywide figure (173) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–500.0%
- 50–10056.1%
- 100–20028.5%
- 200–4004.8%
- 400+10.5%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekday daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 10.5% 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.
El Cerrito against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
88 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than El Cerrito; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
El Cerrito has a higher major-crime index than 5 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Albany (2 mi), is 19% below El Cerrito's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in El Cerrito
What are the most common crimes in El Cerrito?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 230 a year), shoplifting (about 199 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 131 a year). Compared with the U.S., robbery stands out most: 3.5 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 Cerrito's figures add up its 25 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- El Cerrito has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 38.5% 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: 26,671. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in El Cerrito (Contra Costa County), California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/el-cerrito
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Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Albany2 mi140
- East Richmond Heights2 mi96
- Richmond3 mi155
- El Sobrante3 mi177
- Berkeley4 mi277
- San Pablo4 mi132
- Tara Hills5 mi92
- Emeryville6 mi574