Is Cleburne, Texas Safe? Safest Neighborhoods & Other Stats (2026)

Cleburne's Crime Numbers in Context

State and national figures — Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (tables 2 and 3). City figures — NeighborhoodScout. City rates come from a different reporting series than the state and national benchmarks, so read the comparison as a direction, not a precise multiple.

The numbers can be read side by side with confidence: Cleburne carries a violent crime rate of 3 per 1,000 residents and a property crime rate of 11 per 1,000 residents, both drawn from the same federal crime-reporting series as the state and national benchmarks.

What those figures confirm: the city's violent crime rate comes in below both the Texas state figure of 4 per 1,000 and the national figure of 3.7 per 1,000. On property crime, the gap is even wider. A property crime rate of 11 per 1,000 residents is well below the Texas rate of 20.7 per 1,000 and meaningfully below the national rate of 18.4 per 1,000.

That is not a small difference on the property side. Texas as a whole runs nearly double Cleburne's property crime rate, which matters because property offenses — larceny, burglary, auto theft — are the crimes most likely to affect a household's daily sense of security. Larceny and theft is the most common crime category in Cleburne, and property offenses far outnumber violent incidents, with a violent-to-property ratio near the national average.

One number worth keeping in perspective: raw crime counts are higher in the north part of the city, where the highest-traffic commercial corridors run. Crime heat maps weight activity by volume, not by residential risk — a busy commercial strip generates more reported incidents than a quiet cul-de-sac, but that doesn't mean living near it carries proportionally higher personal risk. Analysts who study federal crime-reporting data consistently flag this distortion: red zones on crime maps often reflect high-footfall public areas rather than danger to the people who live nearby.

The Downward Trend

Five years of data through 2024 show both violent crime and property crime declining in Cleburne. That improvement runs alongside a Texas-wide trend of sustained reduction in reported crime rates. A city that is already below state averages and trending down is a materially different situation from one that is below averages but climbing.

Where Cleburne Is Safest — and Where to Be More Careful

The Southeast Advantage

Residents consistently point to the southeast as the quietest part of Cleburne, and the pattern holds up when you compare reported incident concentrations across the city. That area includes neighborhoods like Stonegate and Berkley Heights, both of which sit above the city-wide home-price median and draw families looking for newer construction with calmer surroundings. Stonegate is specifically cited across multiple crime-data aggregators as among Cleburne's safest neighborhoods based on recent data — you can look up a specific address on sites like CrimeGrade.org to get a more granular read.

Westhill, on the elevated western side of the city, also runs quiet. Established lots, owner-occupied homes, and lower turnover tend to correlate with lower property crime, and Westhill fits that profile.

The North Side Picture

The north side logs the highest total incident counts in the city, but that figure becomes more legible when you consider what drives it: the north side is where the city's busiest commercial activity concentrates, meaning more cars, more foot traffic, more opportunities for larceny and auto theft. Residents who live in established neighborhoods north of downtown are not facing violent crime at a dramatically elevated rate — but they are living closer to the retail corridors where property offenses cluster.

The northwest, by contrast, logs the fewest incidents of any part of the city — which may surprise people who assume the north side is uniformly higher-risk. Geography and land use matter as much as compass direction.

Downtown and the Historic District

Downtown Cleburne is a legitimate friction point for prospective residents. The area around the Johnson County Courthouse and the older commercial blocks is going through a slow revitalization, and foot traffic is uneven. Crime maps tend to flag downtown areas regardless of city, because concentrated activity — foot traffic, late-night hours, proximity to transit — produces more reported incidents. The east side of the city carries a higher violent crime rate than the south, though the absolute probability remains relatively low. Choosing a neighborhood close to but not directly in the commercial core gives you proximity to downtown's character without sitting at its highest-incident point.

For a fuller look at what each neighborhood actually looks like day to day, the best neighborhoods in Cleburne guide goes deeper on character and who each area suits.

Reading Crime Maps Without Overreacting

Crime heat maps are useful and routinely misread. The single most important thing to understand about Cleburne's map: the north side's high incident count is driven primarily by its commercial concentration, not by residential danger. Areas near large retail corridors, freight routes, and downtown commercial cores inflate apparent crime counts because they generate more reportable activity, not because residents living there face proportionally higher risk.

The practical implication: if you pull up a crime map and see the area around a major commercial corridor flagged red, look at what's actually there before drawing conclusions about the adjacent residential blocks. A distribution center generating auto-theft reports along a freight route is a different situation from a residential street with a pattern of home burglaries.

What to Actually Look At

When researching specific blocks in Cleburne, the most useful data points are burglary rates (which reflect residential targeting rather than commercial activity) and the ratio of incidents in a zone relative to its daytime population. A high-traffic zone with a large daytime visitor count is a fundamentally different risk environment than a quiet residential zone with the same incident total concentrated among a small number of households.

The northwest's low incident count is meaningful precisely because that area has lower commercial traffic, so the low number reflects genuinely calm residential conditions rather than just fewer people passing through.

One thing that surprises newcomers after a few months in Cleburne: the city feels smaller and more navigable than the crime-map picture suggests. A city of 39,942 people in a Texas county-seat layout means most of the hot-spot activity is legible and avoidable. People who move here from the DFW metro often describe the day-to-day feel as noticeably quieter than what they left behind.

The Cleburne Police Department — What the Accreditation Means

The Cleburne Police Department is a full-service municipal agency with an authorized strength of 55 sworn civil-service officers, nine reserve officers, and 21 civilian employees. For a city of just under 40,000, that staffing level supports a meaningful patrol presence across the city's geographic footprint.

The department has been continuously accredited through the Texas Police Chiefs Association Foundation's Best Practices Accreditation Program since 2016. The most recent on-site inspection was CPD's third successful review under that program. Accreditation under the Best Practices program is not automatic — it requires documented compliance with a set of operational standards, and it involves third-party review rather than self-certification. Continuous accreditation since 2016 means the department has held that standard through multiple review cycles.

Community Programs Worth Knowing

CPD's Community Services Unit runs public-education programs covering personal, residential, vehicle, and travel safety. The department also hosts a Citizens Police Academy — a 10-session program, three hours per week, open to anyone who lives, works, or volunteers in Cleburne. It runs twice a year and gives residents direct access to officers and department leadership in a non-emergency setting. That kind of structured community engagement tends to improve reporting rates and neighborhood watch coordination, both of which affect how quickly property crime gets addressed.

The department also operates the Clergy and Police Officer Alliance (CAPA), a coalition of local pastors who ride along with officers and respond to community crises. In 2024, CPD joined a multi-agency operation with the FBI Dallas field office and approximately 70 Texas law enforcement agencies — Operation Soteria — focused on combating the online sexual exploitation of children. That kind of federal partnership reflects a department operating well beyond the minimum for a city this size.

Practical Safety Considerations Before Choosing a Neighborhood

The neighborhood you choose within Cleburne matters more than the city-wide averages suggest. The gap between the southeast's lowest-risk zones and the north side's busiest corridors is real, even if the city-wide numbers are favorable. Here is what to actually look at when comparing specific areas.

Property Crime Is the Dominant Risk

Larceny and theft drives Cleburne's property crime figures, not burglary or auto theft at alarming rates. That distinction matters for how you think about where to live. A neighborhood close to a busy commercial strip increases your exposure to opportunistic vehicle break-ins and theft from unlocked cars. A newer subdivision further from those corridors — like Stonegate or Berkley Heights — carries lower property crime exposure, and that gap shows up in the data.

Practically: if you're considering a home near a major retail corridor, ask neighbors specifically about vehicle and package theft, not just about the general feel of the block. That is the category most likely to affect you.

What Doesn't Show Up on the Map

Neighborhoods like Meadowbrook Estates and Courtland Place sit in the middle of Cleburne's geographic and risk profile — neither the quietest corners nor the highest-incident zones. The Retreat and Chisholm Hills are similar: established residential areas where day-to-day life feels calm, even if they don't show up as standout performers in aggregated crime data.

Downtown Cleburne and the Historic District are the honest complication. The area is worth experiencing — the Johnson County Courthouse, the Depot at Cleburne Station, and the older commercial blocks have a genuine character — but living directly in or adjacent to the historic commercial core means accepting the incident counts that come with a revitalizing downtown.

For buyers thinking about how neighborhood character connects to long-term value, the best neighborhoods guide pairs this safety picture with a fuller account of each area's housing stock and community feel. The cost-of-living page covers what the typical home price of $271,415 (July 2026) means in practical terms across different parts of the city.

The Honest Friction Point

People who move to Cleburne from more urban DFW submarkets sometimes expect the entire city to feel like its quietest neighborhoods. The north side and the commercial corridors along US-67 are a reality check — not dangerous by any statistical measure, but noticeably busier and more incident-prone than the southeast. Knowing that before you choose a block, rather than after, is the difference between a good fit and a frustrating first year.

Quick Takeaways & FAQs

✅ Cleburne carries a violent crime rate of 3 per 1,000 residents — below both the Texas state average and the national average, a meaningful advantage for a Texas county seat of nearly 40,000 people.

⚠️ The north side's higher incident counts are real and worth factoring in — particularly if you're looking at homes near major commercial corridors where vehicle and package theft concentrate.

📍 The Cleburne Police Department has maintained continuous Best Practices Accreditation since 2016 and runs a Citizens Police Academy twice a year — an unusually strong community engagement program for a city this size.

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