Laguna Beach crime by year: the DOJ figures
The Laguna Beach Police Department reports its crimes each year to the state, and the DOJ publishes them on OpenJustice in its Crimes and Clearances file. The latest edition, released in July 2025, runs to calendar year 2024. These are the department's counts for the last ten years.
| Year | Violent crimes | Property crimes | Burglaries | Vehicle thefts | Larceny-thefts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 76 | 558 | 78 | 60 | 420 |
| 2016 | 116 | 646 | 134 | 60 | 452 |
| 2017 | 100 | 559 | 124 | 66 | 369 |
| 2018 | 90 | 443 | 60 | 43 | 340 |
| 2019 | 38 | 326 | 43 | 22 | 261 |
| 2020 | 89 | 410 | 61 | 57 | 292 |
| 2021 | 97 | 361 | 61 | 40 | 260 |
| 2022 | 88 | 358 | 63 | 41 | 254 |
| 2023 | 114 | 347 | 61 | 43 | 243 |
| 2024 | 37 | 210 | 28 | 17 | 165 |
Property crime has fallen in most years since 2016, from 646 offenses to 210, a drop of about two-thirds. The violent count moves around far more: it was 38 in 2019, 114 in 2023 and 37 in 2024. Nearly all of that swing is aggravated assault, which went from 88 reports in 2023 to 25 in 2024. In 2024 the violent total was 0 homicides, 3 rapes, 9 robberies and 25 aggravated assaults.
In a city of about 22,700 residents (Census ACS 2020-2024), a few dozen reports can move a yearly percentage a long way, so read the run of years rather than one change. KTLA, reporting the department's 2024 announcement, said Laguna Beach had the lowest violent crime rate of Orange County's coastal cities that year and the second-lowest property crime rate, after Dana Point.
How Laguna Beach compares with other Orange County beach cities
Raw counts favor small cities, so the fair comparison is a rate. The table divides each city's 2024 DOJ counts by its Census ACS 2020-2024 population and shows crimes per 1,000 residents. Dana Point and San Clemente are policed under contract by the Orange County Sheriff's Department; the DOJ still reports them as separate cities.
| City (2024) | Violent crimes | Violent per 1,000 | Property crimes | Property per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laguna Beach | 37 | 1.6 | 210 | 9.2 |
| Dana Point | 61 | 1.9 | 283 | 8.6 |
| San Clemente | 112 | 1.8 | 782 | 12.4 |
| Newport Beach | 206 | 2.5 | 1,533 | 18.3 |
| Huntington Beach | 394 | 2.0 | 3,781 | 19.4 |
| Seal Beach | 116 | 4.7 | 662 | 26.8 |
Two cautions. First, 2024 was an unusually low year for Laguna Beach's violent count; in 2023 the same calculation gives about 5.0 violent and 15.3 property crimes per 1,000. Second, a per-resident rate overstates risk in a town that hosts far more people than live in it. City officials cite more than six million visitors a year (KTLA, 2025), a figure that traces back to visitor studies by Visit Laguna Beach, and most of them are day visitors to the beaches, galleries and the downtown village.
Across Orange County as a whole, the same DOJ file shows violent crime up 43.5% between 2019 and 2024 and property crime down 10.4%. Statewide the change was up 8.6% and down 10.9%. Laguna Beach's property count fell 35.6% over those five years, and its violent count was almost unchanged.
What Laguna Beach's property crime actually is
Most reported crime in Laguna Beach is theft. Of the 165 larceny-thefts in 2024, the DOJ breakdown shows 62 in its catch-all "other" category, 36 shoplifting cases, 31 thefts from vehicles, 14 thefts from buildings, 9 pickpocketing and 7 purse-snatching reports, 5 thefts of vehicle parts and 1 bicycle theft. Of the 28 burglaries, 8 were residential and 20 were of shops, offices and other non-residential buildings.
That mix matters when you look at a house. Shoplifting, pickpocketing and car break-ins follow visitors to the shops on Forest Avenue and Coast Highway and the parking around Main Beach and the coves. Residential burglary, the crime most homeowners worry about, was in single digits in 2024; in 2023 there were 34. Take the trend over several years when you look at a specific part of town, and check the maps described below for the streets around a home.
Clearance rates in Laguna Beach
The DOJ file also counts clearances, meaning offenses closed by an arrest or by exceptional means. Laguna Beach police cleared 25 of 37 violent crimes in 2024, about 68%, and 38 of 210 property crimes, about 18%. Statewide in 2024, police cleared about 44% of violent and 10% of property crimes. A higher local rate still means most thefts go unsolved, so insurance, cameras and an inventory of valuables do more for a homeowner than any ranking.
The 2025 change in how Laguna Beach counts crime
On January 1, 2025, the department moved to the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), replacing a database it had used for 17 years, Patch reported. Under the old summary method, only the most serious offense in an incident was counted. NIBRS records up to ten offenses per incident. The department warned that some crime statistics may rise because of the counting change alone, so a jump in the 2025 figures, when the DOJ publishes them, may not mean more crime.
How to check crime near a Laguna Beach address
California DOJ OpenJustice for Laguna Beach
OpenJustice is the source for every count on this page. Pick "Laguna Beach" as the agency to see crimes, clearances, arrests and arson by year back to 1985. It is the most reliable long-run series, but it covers the whole city and only full years, so it cannot tell you about one street.
FBI Crime Data Explorer for Laguna Beach police
The FBI's Crime Data Explorer publishes Laguna Beach Police Department data reported to the national program and calculates rates. Because Laguna Beach moved to NIBRS at the start of 2025, the FBI tool is where the new incident-based detail will appear first. Compare it with OpenJustice before relying on a single year.
Laguna Beach Police Department records and annual statistics
The police department publishes its own year-end crime summary through the City of Laguna Beach news page. For a specific incident, a report copy or a records request, contact the department's records unit. The city's figures can differ slightly from the DOJ file because of timing and reclassification.
Crime maps and alerts for a Laguna Beach street
Third-party maps such as CrimeMapping.com and SpotCrime plot recent incidents by location. They are useful for seeing what happens on a block over a few months, but check which agency feeds each map and how current it is, and ignore estimated neighborhood "crime scores", which are modeled rather than reported. Also search the address on the state's Megan's Law site.
Emerald Bay and other areas outside the city limits
Some homes with a Laguna Beach mailing address are outside the city. Emerald Bay, the gated community between the city and Crystal Cove State Park, is unincorporated, so it is not counted in Laguna Beach police figures. Its crimes fall under the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Confirm which agency serves an address before you rely on a city's numbers.
Fire, landslide and ocean risks in Laguna Beach
For many Laguna Beach buyers, wildfire and land movement are bigger cost questions than crime. The canyons that run down to the coast, including Laguna Canyon, Bluebird Canyon and the hills around Top of the World, meet open space in the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. The October 1993 Laguna Fire destroyed or damaged 441 homes in and around the city, according to Wikipedia's account of the city.
Fire hazard zone and evacuation zone for a Laguna Beach home
Look up the address on CAL FIRE's fire hazard severity zone map; our California wildfire zones guide explains the zone levels and what they mean for a sale. The city divides Laguna Beach into numbered evacuation zones, and it has renamed and renumbered some of them, so check the current zone name on the city's evacuation planning page. Sign up for AlertOC, the county's emergency notification system.
Landslide, flood and tsunami checks in Laguna Beach
Steep lots and coastal bluffs carry landslide and erosion risk. A landslide in January 2025 closed Thousand Steps Beach in South Laguna. Ask for any geotechnical reports on a hillside home, and check the address on Cal OES MyHazards and FEMA's flood maps for flood and tsunami zones. These appear on the Natural Hazard Disclosure statement the seller must give you; our California seller disclosure guide covers it. Insurance follows from all of this: see the California homeowners insurance guide and the FAIR Plan guide.
Checks before you buy or rent in Laguna Beach
- Read at least five years of the city's DOJ counts, not just the latest one.
- Find out whether the address is inside the city or in an unincorporated area such as Emerald Bay, and which agency patrols it.
- Look at incident maps for the surrounding streets over several months, and visit on a summer weekend as well as a weekday evening, when visitor traffic is very different.
- Search the address on the Megan's Law site.
- Check the fire hazard zone, evacuation zone, landslide history and flood and tsunami maps.
- Get homeowners and, if needed, FAIR Plan quotes before you remove your contingencies.
- If the home is in a private or gated community, ask the association what security it pays for and what incidents it has had.
For the wider picture of life in the city, see is Laguna Beach a good place to live and the Laguna Beach neighborhoods guide. Our safest places to live in California guide compares cities statewide using the same DOJ source.