Crime in San Luis Obispo, California
Major crime in San Luis Obispo is 33% above the U.S. rate per resident: 19% higher for persons crimes and 37% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 7.8% 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.
Check an address in San Luis Obispo
Theft from vehicle stands out most, at 2.2 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in San Luis Obispo 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 San Luis Obispo
The middle half of San Luis Obispo residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 65 and 144; the typical (median) resident's is 92. The citywide figure (133) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5014.8%
- 50–10039.1%
- 100–20029.7%
- 200–40012.2%
- 400+4.1%
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 7.8% 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.
San Luis Obispo against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
123 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than San Luis Obispo; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
San Luis Obispo has a higher major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Pismo Beach (8 mi), is 11% below San Luis Obispo's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in San Luis Obispo
What are the most common crimes in San Luis Obispo?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are theft from vehicle (about 293 a year), other larceny (about 292 a year) and shoplifting (about 225 a year). Compared with the U.S., theft from vehicle stands out most: 2.2 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. San Luis Obispo's figures add up its 30 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- San Luis Obispo's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 25.5% 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: 50,748. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in San Luis Obispo, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/san-luis-obispo
Use these numbers in your product
Any U.S. address by API or MCP, free for 10,000 lookups a month.
Get a free API keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Pismo Beach8 mi119
- Los Osos10 mi50
- Grover Beach11 mi54
- Arroyo Grande11 mi44
- Oceano12 mi79
- Morro Bay13 mi66
- Atascadero14 mi55
- Cayucos17 mi101