Crime Trends in the United States and California

Some years ago, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation began tracking the trends in crime in California versus the country as a whole. California has been more aggressive than most states in the “criminal justice reform” movement, a euphemism for reducing the consequences of crime to criminals.

With the release of the 2022 national crime data, it seemed like a good time to update the trendline.

Noted on the graphs are the times of enactment of three major pieces of legislation: Assembly Bill 109, (the Realignment bill of 2011), which sent a large portion of California felons to county jail instead of state prison; Proposition 47, which reduced many felonies to misdemeanors; and Proposition 57, which reduced time served for many of the felons still in state prison, in some cases drastically. There have been many other bills watering down consequences, but these are the three largest.

California was generally tracking the decline in crime of the country as a whole before this wave of legislation began. The trend in violent crimes had a bump in 2012 and then a sharp divergence from 2015 to the latest available data. The gains since 2008 have been given back in California, while nationally the major declines stopped in 2012, with no clear up or down trend from that year to the present.

For property crime, California has seen a decline overall during this period, but it has not shared as great a decline as the country as a whole. For the last two years, property crime is nearly unchanged in the country as a whole but up nearly 10% in California. The state’s property crime rate was 9% below the national rate in 2008 but now is 20% above it.

These trends are, of course, not proof by themselves of the folly of California’s “reform” policies. There are many factors that go into crime rates, and some other states have also adopted misguided policies. Even so, the divergence from the national trend and especially the sharp increases in the last year cast doubt on the “reformers” assurances that everything is fine and that those of us questioning the changes are engaging in “scare tactics.” A 13% increase in violent crime in two years is alarming by any standard.