Photo: Pi.1415926535 · CC BY-SA 3.0Davis records more property crime per head than four in five U.S. towns
Year on year, 1.9 violent crimes and 23.1 incidents of property crime occur per 1,000 residents, compared with 4.9 and 21.4 in the rest of California. Davis’s overall Safety Grade is C (#224 of 416 graded towns in California): more crime per resident than 74% of U.S. towns, on crimes its police reported from 2023 to 2025. Per resident, the graded crimes were down 27% from 2023 to 2025.
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. “Rest of CA” is every other California city and town in the FBI’s tables; the U.S. figure is the FBI’s national estimate as published, averaged over the three years. The FBI publishes no national homicide or robbery rate in our data, so those compare with all U.S. cities and towns in its tables.
What stands out about safety in Davis
Among California towns, closer to the middle
California’s cities and towns report more crime than most states’, so Davis’ place among its own towns differs from its national one: it reports less crime than 46% of the 416 California towns we grade, against 26% nationally. Safety Grade ↓
A college town
Davis is home to the University of California-Davis, with 39,356 students taking classes on campus (federal college data), and 34% of residents are enrolled in college (Census). Students who live in town count as residents, so they are part of the per-resident rate. How to read it ↓
Reported crime is falling
Crime reported per resident fell from 2023 to 2025 by more than ordinary year-to-year swings, on the grade’s own score. Trend ↓
Written from the FBI data on this page. Figures are crimes reported to police, not convictions.
What’s behind Davis’ grade
Property crimes plus four times violent crimes reported to the FBI per resident, 2023–2025, on a national curve. Both violent and property crime are higher than in most U.S. towns; violent crime is the closer of the two to typical. Its violent rate (1.9) is below the FBI’s national estimate (3.6) but higher than in most individual towns: the national figure is weighted by people, and the grade counts towns.
Reported crime per resident, 2023 to 2025
Show as a table
| Year | Davis property | Rest of California property | Davis violent | Rest of California violent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 28.1 | 24.8 | 2.5 | 5.1 |
| 2023 | 27.5 | 24.9 | 2.0 | 5.4 |
| 2024 | 22.1 | 20.8 | 1.9 | 4.9 |
| 2025 | 19.6 | 18.5 | 1.9 | 4.3 |
Crimes per 1,000 residents
Reported crime per resident fell from 2023 to 2025, by more than ordinary year-to-year swings. Per 1,000 residents, 2022–2025, against the rest of California.
Violent crime, by year and by type
Show as a table
| Year | Davis | Rest of California | U.S. (FBI national estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2.5 | 5.1 | 4.0 |
| 2023 | 2.0 | 5.4 | 3.9 |
| 2024 | 1.9 | 4.9 | 3.6 |
| 2025 | 1.9 | 4.3 | 3.3 |
Violent crimes per 1,000 residents
By type 2023–2025, counts
Davis’ police reported 385 violent crimes to the FBI over 2023–2025, about 1.9 per 1,000 residents a year, against 4.9 in the rest of California and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
Crime in Davis per 1,000 residents
Violent crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Property crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Crimes reported to police in 2025 per resident; one person can be the victim of more than one, and some reports involve visitors.
And about 2 violent crimes, in 2025. Below are 1,000 dots, one per resident; each colored dot is one reported crime.
1,446 crimes reported in 2025
2025 offenses reported
Offenses reported to police, not convictions. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. The last row is counted outside the property total.
128 violent and 1,318 property, as reported to the FBI by Davis’ police.
11 people died in crashes on Davis’s roads in 2019–2023
Davis had 9 fatal crashes in five years, in which 11 people died; 5 were pedestrians. Most of these deaths (6 of 11) were on an Interstate passing through, so they say more about through-traffic than about the town’s own streets.
That is 3.3 deaths per 100,000 residents a year, below the median for California towns of 25,000–100,000 people (5.6, 231 towns).
Deaths are counted where the crash happened, not where the people lived: a highway through town adds through-traffic deaths, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Town rates sit below state and U.S. rates because a third of fatal crashes happen outside any town. Road safety is described here and is not part of the Safety Grade. Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023.
Davis and its neighbors
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Davis | C | 1.9 | 23.1 |
| University of California-Davis | — | — | — |
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. University of California-Davis is an unincorporated community (a census-designated place) with no police department of its own.
California towns of a similar size
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Davis | C | 1.9 | 23.1 |
| Yorba Linda | B+ | 0.6 | 8.3 |
| Brentwood | C | 2.3 | 20.4 |
| South San Francisco | C | 3.3 | 16.6 |
| Redondo Beach | C− | 2.7 | 24.4 |
| Union City | C− | 4.5 | 24.0 |
The five graded California towns closest to Davis’ population (66,110), by grade.
How reported crime compares across the town line. Tap a town to see its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- It’s reported crime. Only incidents reported to and recorded by police appear here. Many crimes are never reported to police.
- One number for all of Davis. A citywide rate doesn’t show where incidents happen, and that can differ a lot from one part of the city to another.
- Visitors count too. Incidents involving people who work, shop or visit are counted against Davis’ residents, which raises the per-resident rate.
- Whose population. Rates use the FBI’s population for the department (67,181 in 2025); our figure for Davis is 66,110 (2025 Census estimate).
- Gaps are real gaps. A missing year means the department didn’t report a full year, not that nothing happened.
How the grade is calculated, for every town: How TownRatings grades safety →
Questions about safety in Davis
Is Davis, CA safe?
On crimes reported to the FBI in 2023–2025, Davis reports more crime per resident than 74% of U.S. towns, a C Safety Grade and #224 of 416 in California. Its police reported 1.9 violent crimes per 1,000 residents a year, against 4.9 in the rest of California and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
What is the crime rate in Davis?
1.9 violent and 23.1 property crimes per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025, as reported to the FBI. The rest of California reports 4.9 and 21.4; the FBI’s national estimate is 3.6 and 17.6.
How many homicides were there in Davis in 2025?
Davis’s police reported 0 homicides to the FBI for 2025, 0.0 per 100,000 residents. Across U.S. cities and towns in the FBI’s tables the 2025 figure was 4.6.
Who polices Davis?
Davis’s own police department, which reports to the FBI as “Davis”. Its figures are the ones on this page.
Heads-up board
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Please don’t name or describe individuals. In an emergency, call 911.
Neighbors looking out for each other in Davis.
Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime Data Explorer: offenses known to law enforcement by city, 2025, and state and national rates. Counts are crimes reported to police, not convictions. The Safety Grade is our own summary of that data, not an official rating. Road deaths: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023. This isn’t an official statement of public safety. In an emergency, call 911.