(The Center Square) – The Public Policy Institute of California’s analysis of 2023 crime statistics show that most crime categories are up significantly compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels, including violent crime, shoplifting and car theft.
The new PPIC report found the state’s violent crime rate in 2023, at 503 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, was 15.4% higher than it was in 2019. The state’s violent crime rate was 236 per 100,000 in 1960, 888 per 100,000 in 1980, and reached its 50-year-low of 391 per 100,000 in 2014, the same year California voters passed Proposition 47 – a measure that significantly reduced prosecution of many drug and theft related crimes.
California’s reported property crime rate in 2023 was 0.3% below 2019 levels, but with the 2023 national rate at which individuals report property crimes against them down 14.4% compared to 2019, real property crime in California is likely up but obfuscated by lower reporting rates.
Because reporting all theft is time-intensive and could result in higher business insurance rates due to proof of higher risk – or, in the case of one Target store in Sacramento, government threats of a public nuisance charge for reporting too much crime – it is likely store-related property crime is higher than reported. Nonetheless, PPIC’s report notes that reported shoplifting is 29.3% higher than in 2019.
While reporterted larcenies and burglaries were down compared to 2019, reported auto thefts were 42.9% higher than in 2019, and thefts of car accessories – such as valuable catalytic converters — were 52% higher than in 2019, which could be a more accurate barometer of property crime due to the need to file police reports to collect insurance payouts. Likewise, some measure of insurance fraud could be behind some of the colossal increase in auto-related crime reports.
In response to perceptions of worsening crime, the majority of voters in every California county passed Prop. 36 in November 2024, reversing much of Prop. 47. With drug and theft crimes now being able to be prosecuted as “wobblers” that could be felonies or misdemeanors for serious offenders at prosecutors’ discretion, statewide crime could decline significantly in 2025.
