Large declines in crime occurred both before and after Proposition 36 took effect and are taking place across the U.S.
With 2025 crime data now available for 82.2% of California, including all 15 major cities, the state is headed for its lowest levels of crime in many decades.
Findings
- The latest data project that California’s major crime rate will fall approximately 7% in 2025, reaching historically low levels (Figure 1). This represents a staggering 71% decline since crime peaked in 1980 (FBI, 2026; CADOJ, 2025).
- Crime is down across every major category. Reported rates are at their lowest levels for homicide since 1955; for robbery since 1959; for aggravated assault since 1974; for motor vehicle theft since 1959; and for burglary since statewide statistics were first compiled in 1952 (CADOJ, 2025). Other offenses were not consistently tabulated until 1970 or were expanded in definition, but these also stand at decades-long lows. Figure 1 illustrates the trends in violent and property crime rates over the last 40 years.
Part I offenses reported to law enforcement per 100,000 population, California and the rest of the United States, 1985 – 2025
- Recent criminal justice reforms do not appear to significantly affect crime rates. This includes 2014’s Proposition 47, which reduced certain low-level drug and property crimes to misdemeanors, and 2024’s Proposition 36, which restored some of these offenses to felonies. The general declines in both property and violent offenses, with a brief increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, occurred from 2010 through 2025, including for the Part I offense most affected by these reforms: larceny/theft. Further, the decline from 2023 to 2024 (-14%), before Proposition 36 took effect, was larger than the expected decline from 2024 to 2025 (-7%), its first full year of implementation. Comparable declines in Part I offenses (-5%) also occurred in other states in 2025.
Method
Of California’s law enforcement jurisdictions, 79% had reported Part I violent and property offenses to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer as of this writing. Reporting jurisdictions included 13 of California’s 15 major cities (Anaheim, Bakersfield, Chula Vista, Fresno, Irvine, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose, Santa Ana, Stockton). Numbers for the two exceptions, Oakland and San Francisco, have been manually added from their police departments’ annual 2025 website tabulations (OPD, 2026; SFPD, 2026). Together, the 2025 numbers presented here represent 82.2% of the state’s population, including all major cities.
Statistics through 2022, are taken from the California Department of Justice’s Crime in California annual report (CADOJ, 2025). These closely match those for corresponding years on the FBI’s CDE page (FBI, 2026). Figures for 2023, 2024, and 2025 for both California and nationally are taken from the CDE to ensure consistency in reporting offenses under new FBI guidelines. Two additional adjustments to California and national crime totals are made using (a) arrest proportions to correct for the Los Angeles Police Department’s large undercounts of assaults and robberies during 2005 – 2016 (CADOJ, 2025), and (b) using the Oakland Police Department’s final 2023 annual report (OPD, 2026) to correct for the large overcount of assault arrests in its original crime filings.
Figures for 2025 are divided by 0.8219 to project the full year’s totals for California and by 0.8914 to project full-year totals for the United States as a whole. The assumption that the pattern of crimes from the 18% of California remaining to report (note again that all 15 major cities are included in the tabulation here) reasonably will resemble those from the 82% that have already reported produces an unbiased estimate of the complete 2025 data. California’s adjusted 2025 Part I numbers are subtracted from 2025 Part I crime numbers for the United States as a whole to yield crime rates and trends for states other than California.
Conclusion
Contrary to politicians’ and news stories’ persistently wrong claims, California is not suffering a surge in or high levels of crime. Just the opposite is occurring, in fact: California’s Part I crime rates are at their lowest levels in 2024 and 2025 than at any time in at least 50 years of crime tabulations.
Sources
California Department of Justice (CADOJ). 2025. Open Justice, Publications. Crime in California. At: https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov…. Crimes and Clearances. At: https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov….
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 2026. Crime Data Explorer. Crime trends. At: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATES…. NBRS estimates. At: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATES….
Oakland Police Department (OPD). 2026. OPD Crime data reports. Weekly, annual. At: https://cityofoakland2.app.box….
San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). 2026. Crime dashboard (updated weekly). At: https://www.sanfranciscopolice….