Crime in Poway, California
Major crime in Poway is 63% below the U.S. rate per resident: 63% lower for persons crimes and 63% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are up 20.2% 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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Every crime type in Poway is near or below the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Poway 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 Poway
The middle half of Poway residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 13 and 55; the typical (median) resident's is 21. The citywide figure (37) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5074.8%
- 50–10017.3%
- 100–2006.0%
- 200–4002.0%
- 400+0.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest in the daytime
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime rose 20.2% 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.
Poway against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
841 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Poway; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Poway has a higher major-crime index than 2 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Eucalyptus Hills (8 mi), is 37% below Poway's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Poway
What are the most common crimes in Poway?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are shoplifting (about 83 a year), theft from vehicle (about 67 a year) and other larceny (about 58 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 25% below 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. Poway's figures add up its 31 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Poway's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 17.6% 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: 47,947. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Poway, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/poway
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Eucalyptus Hills8 mi23
- Santee9 mi54
- Rancho Santa Fe10 mi39
- Escondido11 mi96
- Ramona11 mi40
- Winter Gardens12 mi41
- Lakeside12 mi31
- Bostonia12 mi55