Downtown Long Beach is a neighborhood of 51,200 residents in Long Beach, close to downtown · Updated November 2026
Is Downtown Long Beach in Long Beach safe?
Downtown Long Beach is among the higher-crime places in the US: an overall CrimeGrade™ of F, with more crime than the neighborhoods where 93% of Americans live. Violent crime grades D and property crime F. Long Beach as a whole grades D+. What matters most is the neighborhood: grades within Downtown Long Beach run from B- to F, so check the map below.
F
Overall CrimeGrade™
Safety score 11 of 1,000Less safe than nearly all US neighborhoodsi What this means
7% of Americans live in neighborhoods with more crime than Downtown Long Beach as a whole, and 93% in neighborhoods with less. The typical US neighborhood has a safety score of 838, a CrimeGrade™ of A-. Downtown Long Beach scores 11.
Crime is concentrated in a small share of places, so most neighborhoods score high on the 0 to 1,000 scale. That is why a score in the 800s can still mean more crime than most US neighborhoods.
How to read the map: each area's color compares its crime with the people, homes and cars there, on one national scale, from green for the least crime to red for the most. Each area gets its own color, so a busy shopping center can show red while the homes beside it stay green. The interactive maps load faster on a strong connection. Compare high speed internet in Downtown Long Beach, Long Beach, CA at ISP Reports.
Who this page is for: homeowners and renters in Downtown Long Beach in Long Beach, and anyone thinking about buying or renting a home there.
Business and enterprise customers: this free map shows neighborhood areas. CrimeGrade™ business reports map crime at about 66-meter detail and estimate it for one address and type of business. See business reports
What stands out in Downtown Long Beach
Car thefts happen on streets and sidewalks far more often than nationally. In Long Beach as a whole, 92% of reported car thefts happen on streets and sidewalks, against 27% nationally.
Robberies and arsons both run high. In Downtown Long Beach, each runs at more than triple the US rate: 4.3 robberies and 0.47 arsons a year per 1,000 residents, against 0.62 and 0.12 nationally.
How Downtown Long Beach compares within Long Beach
High crime is widespread across Downtown Long Beach: 94% of residents live in areas graded D or F, and 2% in areas graded A or B. Grades across Downtown Long Beach run from B- to F; every part of Downtown Long Beach has more crime than the typical US neighborhood.
94%
A or B 2%C 4%D or F 94%
Share of residents, by the overall CrimeGrade™ of the area they live in.
Downtown Long Beach has less crime than 4 of the 22 neighborhoods in Long Beach. It covers much of the East Side, Downtown Long Beach, and Belmont Heights areas.
Is crime going up in Long Beach?
Reported crime in Long Beach as a whole has risen since 2019: violent crime is up 29% and property crime up 39%. Murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults went from about 5.2 to 6.7 a year per 1,000 residents (US: 3.7); burglaries, thefts and vehicle thefts from about 25 to 34 (US: 18). In 2024 alone, property crime rose 13%.
Violent crime, change since 2019
Property crime, change since 2019
Long BeachUnited States
Source: crime reports to the FBI from the police departments that serve Long Beach. The charts follow crimes per resident.
Data table
Year
Violent, Long Beach
Violent, US
Property, Long Beach
Property, US
2016
+18%
+4%
+23%
+15%
2017
+29%
+4%
+10%
+12%
2018
+37%
+0%
+5%
+4%
2019
+0%
+0%
+0%
+0%
2020
-3%
+4%
+11%
-8%
2021
+10%
+6%
+15%
-10%
2022
+6%
+5%
+9%
-6%
2023
+21%
+2%
+24%
-7%
2024
+29%
-4%
+39%
-15%
Crime rates and types in Downtown Long Beach
CrimeGrade™ estimates Downtown Long Beach has about 92 reported crimes a year for every 1,000 residents, more than double the rate for the US as a whole and 57% more than Long Beach as a whole.
Overall crime
Violent crime
Property crime
Reported crimes a year, per 1,000 residents. These figures include simple assaults and vandalism, which the FBI's violent and property crime rates leave out.
Assault is the most common crime in Downtown Long Beach, about 31% of everything reported, and it also accounts for the largest share of what crime costs here.
Each CrimeGrade™ compares a crime with what it affects: people for assaults and robbery, homes for burglary, parked cars for vehicle theft. Rates count crimes per 1,000 residents.
Select a crime's name to see its map above. CrimeGrade™ business reports map each crime at about 66-meter detail.
Where and when crime happens in Long Beach
The Long Beach Police Department polices Downtown Long Beach; these figures cover Long Beach as a whole, 2022 to 2024.
In Long Beach as a whole, 38% of burglaries hit homes, against 57% nationally. Thefts from cars happen most often on streets and sidewalks: 57% of them, against 18% nationally.
Crime
Most often at
Busiest time
Burglary
Stores and businesses (40%)
Afternoon (noon to 6 pm)
Car theft
Streets and sidewalks (92%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Theft from cars
Streets and sidewalks (57%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Vandalism
Streets and sidewalks (36%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Robbery
Stores and businesses (41%)
Afternoon (noon to 6 pm)
Aggravated assault
Streets and sidewalks (38%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Shares of the crimes reported to police, 2022 to 2024. Reports with no time recorded are left out of the times.
How Downtown Long Beach compares with nearby neighborhoods
Downtown Long Beach has more crime than 7 of its 10 nearest neighborhoods. Park Estates and Los Cerritos have the least crime nearby.
Nearest first, with each place's distance from Downtown Long Beach. Beside each overall CrimeGrade™ is its safety score, from 0 to 1,000 (higher is safer).
Compared with neighborhoods of similar size and density, Downtown Long Beach has more crime than 79% of them.
Tree cover, nightlife and walkability in Downtown Long Beach
Two things set Downtown Long Beach apart: it has tree cover over 1% of the land where people live, against 21% nationally, and 1.7 bars and nightlife spots for every 1,000 residents, against 0.6 nationally. It also combines many bars with dense blocks: places with both tend to report more assault and robbery than places with only one of them, and they run high here.
Tree coverThe share of land under tree canopy where people live. Leafy neighborhoods tend to report less robbery.1% where people liveUS: 21%Lower than for 94% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Bars and nightlifeBars, lounges, clubs and casinos. Places with more bars tend to report more assault and robbery.1.7 per 1,000 residentsUS: 0.6Higher than for 90% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Walk GradeBestNeighborhood's grade for getting through daily life on foot, traced along real walking routes to shops, schools and parks. Walkable places tend to report more theft and assault. 86% of residents here live in walkable areas.A (83 of 100)US: 21Higher than for 86% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Show all 4
Residents in dense blocksBlocks of 10,000 or more people per square mile. Dense neighborhoods tend to report more robbery and car theft.97% of residentsUS: 24%Higher than for 84% of residents of US city neighborhoods
These traits tend to go with more or less crime; none of them causes it on its own. Sources: Census job counts and housing figures, OpenStreetMap and Overture business listings, CrimeGrade™ parking estimates, NASA night-light imagery, US Forest Service tree cover, EPA transit data and BestNeighborhood's Walk Grade.
What crime costs Downtown Long Beach
Counting police, courts and prisons as well as victims' losses, crime costs Downtown Long Beach about $2,702 a year per household, more than double the US figure of $1,205.
Cost of crime per resident, per year
Counting the pain and suffering of victims, which comes almost entirely from violent crime, the full cost comes to about $215 million a year, or $4,187 per resident.
How CrimeGrade™ works
A CrimeGrade™ shows how much crime an area has compared with the rest of the country, from A+ for the least crime to F for the most. Every neighborhood in the US is graded on the same scale, so a B in Downtown Long Beach means the same as a B anywhere else.
CrimeGrade™ starts from the crimes people report to police and measures each kind of crime against what it affects: people for assaults, homes for burglaries, parked cars for car thefts.
The rates on this page count crimes for every 1,000 people who live here, the way police departments report them.
Comparisons with US neighborhoods use the Census Bureau's block groups, small areas of about 1,400 residents, and count the people who live in each. The figures count crimes reported to police; many crimes, shoplifting above all, never are. Behind the grades, CrimeGrade™ tested 21,607 factors from 125 data families. For business owners, paid CrimeGrade™ location reports estimate crime at a single address for each type of business.
Where the numbers come from
Crime reports that police departments file with the FBI
State crime records and city crime data, where they are published
Published research on what crime costs victims and communities
These are estimates of reported crime for whole areas, not a record of what happened on any one street. CrimeGrade™ updates them once a year and provides them free and without guarantee. Check local sources before you rely on them for a decision.
Schools in Downtown Long Beach, Long Beach, CA average a SchoolGrade of D+: 29% of students test proficient, against 27% projected for schools like them. Overall, they exceed expectations. See schools in Downtown Long Beach on SchoolGrade
