Crime in Watsonville, California
Major crime in Watsonville is 10% below the U.S. rate per resident: 24% higher for persons crimes and 17% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are up 9.7% 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.
Check an address in Watsonville
Weapons violations stand out most, at 2.0 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Watsonville 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 Watsonville
The middle half of Watsonville residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 51 and 106; the typical (median) resident's is 66. The citywide figure (90) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5024.3%
- 50–10047.3%
- 100–20019.0%
- 200–4009.5%
- 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 Friday and Saturday nights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime rose 9.7% 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.
Watsonville against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
278 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Watsonville; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Watsonville 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, Interlaken (3 mi), is 49% below Watsonville's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Watsonville
What are the most common crimes in Watsonville?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are shoplifting (about 214 a year), other larceny (about 140 a year) and aggravated assault (about 136 a year). Compared with the U.S., weapons violations stands out most: 2.0 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. Watsonville's figures add up its 26 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Watsonville has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 100.0% 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: 50,721. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Watsonville, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/watsonville
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
- Interlaken3 mi46
- Rio del Mar7 mi38
- Aptos9 mi63
- Prunedale10 mi40
- Castroville11 mi53
- Capitola11 mi150
- Soquel11 mi64
- Gilroy12 mi86