Crime in Santa Barbara, California
Major crime in Santa Barbara is 29% above the U.S. rate per resident: 2.1 times for persons crimes and 12% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 4.6% 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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Drugs and alcohol stands out most, at 3.9 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara
The middle half of Santa Barbara residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 42 and 102; the typical (median) resident's is 71. The citywide figure (129) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5029.0%
- 50–10043.1%
- 100–20017.0%
- 200–4005.1%
- 400+5.8%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on Friday and Saturday nights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 4.6% 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.
Santa Barbara against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
139 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Santa Barbara; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Santa Barbara 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, Mission Canyon (2 mi), is 81% below Santa Barbara's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Santa Barbara
What are the most common crimes in Santa Barbara?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 750 a year), aggravated assault (about 426 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 177 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 3.9 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. Santa Barbara's figures add up its 81 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Santa Barbara's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 22.8% 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: 86,085. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Santa Barbara, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/santa-barbara
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Mission Canyon2 mi24
- Montecito4 mi36
- Eastern Goleta Valley5 mi22
- Isla Vista8 mi28
- Goleta9 mi54
- Carpinteria11 mi50
- Oak View23 mi63
- Mira Monte24 mi44