Crime in Santa Maria, California
Major crime in Santa Maria is 14% above the U.S. rate per resident: 1.9 times for persons crimes and about the same for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 17.7% 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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Robbery stands out most, at 2.7 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Santa Maria 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 Maria
The middle half of Santa Maria residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 48 and 135; the typical (median) resident's is 89. The citywide figure (114) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5025.3%
- 50–10032.6%
- 100–20030.3%
- 200–40010.4%
- 400+1.4%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest at night
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 17.7% 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 Maria against U.S. places with 100,000 to 250,000 residents
127 of the 268 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Santa Maria; the middle of the group is 109. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Santa Maria has a higher major-crime index than 7 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Orcutt (5 mi), is 80% below Santa Maria's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Santa Maria
What are the most common crimes in Santa Maria?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 581 a year), aggravated assault (about 465 a year) and motor vehicle theft (about 315 a year). Compared with the U.S., robbery stands out most: 2.7 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 Maria's figures add up its 60 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Santa Maria's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 71.9% 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: 113,226. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Santa Maria, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/santa-maria
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Orcutt5 mi23
- Nipomo6 mi57
- Oceano15 mi79
- Arroyo Grande15 mi44
- Grover Beach16 mi54
- Vandenberg Village17 mi16
- Mission Hills18 mi17
- Pismo Beach18 mi119