Crime in Palm Desert, California
Major crime in Palm Desert is 9% above the U.S. rate per resident: 51% lower for persons crimes and 23% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 11.3% 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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Theft from vehicle stands out most, at 2.0 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Palm Desert 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 Palm Desert
The middle half of Palm Desert residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 47 and 115; the typical (median) resident's is 70. The citywide figure (109) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5036.4%
- 50–10036.7%
- 100–20016.9%
- 200–4006.4%
- 400+3.6%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 11.3% 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.
Palm Desert against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
196 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Palm Desert; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Palm Desert has a higher major-crime index than 4 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Indian Wells (2 mi), is 5% below Palm Desert's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Palm Desert
What are the most common crimes in Palm Desert?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are theft from vehicle (about 294 a year), other larceny (about 278 a year) and shoplifting (about 221 a year). Compared with the U.S., theft from vehicle stands out most: 2.0 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. Palm Desert's figures add up its 45 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Palm Desert has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 30.7% 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: 55,596. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Palm Desert, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/palm-desert
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Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Indian Wells2 mi104
- Bermuda Dunes4 mi161
- Rancho Mirage4 mi113
- Desert Palms5 mi134
- Thousand Palms6 mi186
- La Quinta6 mi87
- Indio7 mi52
- Cathedral City8 mi73