Crime in Rancho Santa Margarita, California
Major crime in Rancho Santa Margarita is 74% below the U.S. rate per resident: 70% lower for persons crimes and 74% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 18.6% 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 Rancho Santa Margarita is near or below the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Rancho Santa Margarita 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 Rancho Santa Margarita
The middle half of Rancho Santa Margarita residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 10 and 29; the typical (median) resident's is 13. The citywide figure (27) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5088.8%
- 50–1009.9%
- 100–2001.3%
- 200–4000.0%
- 400+0.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekend daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 18.6% 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.
Rancho Santa Margarita against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
929 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Rancho Santa Margarita; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Rancho Santa Margarita has a lower major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Coto de Caza (3 mi), is 14% above Rancho Santa Margarita's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Rancho Santa Margarita
What are the most common crimes in Rancho Santa Margarita?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are shoplifting (about 68 a year), aggravated assault (about 33 a year) and other larceny (about 33 a year). Compared with the U.S., shoplifting stands out most: 53% 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. Rancho Santa Margarita's figures add up its 31 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Rancho Santa Margarita has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 9.8% 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: 45,548. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Rancho Santa Margarita, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/rancho-santa-margarita
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Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Coto de Caza3 mi30
- Mission Viejo4 mi42
- Las Flores4 mi41
- Lake Forest5 mi45
- Ladera Ranch6 mi48
- Laguna Hills7 mi64
- Rancho Mission Viejo7 mi44
- Laguna Woods8 mi37