Crime & Safety in El Paso
El Paso's crime reputation and its raw crime-index numbers genuinely diverge across sources, and that disagreement is worth stating plainly rather than resolved artificially. El Paso has ranked #1 or #2 on multiple national 'safest large city' lists over multiple decades, including CQ Press rankings based on FBI data (named safest large city in the U.S. for the third year running as of 2011-2012 FBI data) -- yet some current online crime-index aggregators score El Paso surprisingly low on relative percentile scales. Both facts are real; they measure different things.
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Learn moreEl Paso's Long-Running 'Safest Large City' Reputation
El Paso has ranked #1 or #2 on multiple national 'safest large city' lists over multiple decades, including rankings by CQ Press (a well-known crime-rankings publisher) and analyses of FBI Uniform Crime Report data -- for example, being named the safest large U.S. city for the third consecutive year based on 2011 FBI data. This is a long-standing, well-documented civic reputation, not a one-off statistic. Worth disclosing honestly: CQ Press itself stopped attaching a 'safest' label to its crime-rate rankings years ago, stating the label conveys a perception rather than a fact, and the FBI advises against using its own figures to rank cities against each other -- so even the historical 'safest large city' framing comes with real methodological caveats from the source organizations themselves.
Current Violent Crime Data
Current sources reviewed in August 2026 cite El Paso's violent crime rate well below the national average: one source cites 400 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2026 year-to-date, describing a rate 36% below the national average; another cites a violent crime rate of 3.12 (per 1,000, on that source's index) against a national rate of 33.37 on the same scale, and a 1-in-392 annual chance of being a violent crime victim. Sources agree directionally -- violent crime meaningfully below the national average -- even where exact figures and scales differ.
A Genuine, Unreconciled Disagreement on Overall Crime Percentile
Not every source agrees on how safe El Paso ranks in relative terms. One aggregator (NeighborhoodScout-style percentile scoring) put El Paso's overall crime index at roughly 45.9 per 1,000 residents, placing it in a low safety percentile relative to other U.S. cities by that specific methodology -- while other reporting from the same type of source described El Paso as safer than a meaningful share of comparably sized cities and consistent with the historical 'safest large city' reputation. This is a genuine, disclosed conflict rather than a settled figure: percentile-based city-ranking tools use different population comparison sets and weighting methods, and they can produce quite different relative rankings even when the underlying raw crime rate is not itself in dispute. Treat any single percentile ranking you encounter with real skepticism about its methodology.
Property Crime
Property crime estimates also vary by source: one source cited a property crime rate of 1,464.2 per 100,000 residents, about 20% below the national average, while another cited a lower property-crime index score of 12.4-13.94 (on that source's own comparative scale) also below the national baseline. Both directionally describe property crime as below the national average, consistent with the violent-crime picture, though -- as with the overall percentile disagreement above -- exact figures should not be treated as precisely reconciled across sources.
Neighborhood-to-Neighborhood Variance
As with any city this size, citywide figures blend genuinely different neighborhoods -- areas like Coronado and Mission Hills are specifically cited by local sources as relatively low-crime with strong day-to-day livability, while other parts of the city likely score less favorably on the same measures. Anyone narrowing in on a specific address should check a block-level safety tool directly rather than relying on the citywide figure alone.
Key takeaways
- El Paso has ranked #1 or #2 on multiple national 'safest large city' lists over multiple decades (CQ Press, FBI UCR-based analyses) -- though CQ Press itself dropped the 'safest' label years ago, and the FBI cautions against using its data to rank cities.
- Current violent-crime figures are cited well below the national average across sources (e.g., 36% below national per one source; a 1-in-392 annual victim odds per another), though exact rates and scales differ.
- There is a genuine, unreconciled disagreement between sources on El Paso's overall relative safety percentile -- some tools score it as comparatively low-percentile while others support the historical 'safest large city' reputation; this reflects differing methodologies, not a single settled ranking.
- Property crime is cited below the national average across sources reviewed, though specific figures vary by methodology.
- Neighborhood-level variance is real -- check a block-level safety tool for a specific address rather than relying on the citywide figure alone.
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