California homicide rate hits lowest in decades, with violent and property crimes also down

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Set us as preferred California’s crime rate dropped last year to historic lows in several major categories, including violent crimes like robbery and homicides, with property crimes and incidents of car thefts also down, state officials announced.State leaders, including Gov.Gavin Newsom and Atty.

Gen.Rob Bonta, attributed the declines to improved crime-fighting efforts statewide.“California continues to make meaningful progress in improving public safety, with every major statewide crime rate declining in 2025,” according to a news release from Newsom’s office.

The number of homicides dropped from 1,666 to 1,374 last year, a 17.5% decrease, according to statistics from the state Department of Justice.As a result, the homicide rate for 2025 was 3.5 for every 100,000 people, the lowest it has been since crime recording began six decades ago, according to the news release.

Robbery rates dropped by 19.9%, while violent crime rates fell by 10.2% and property crime rates dropped by 14.3%, according to the state data.The largest decline was in the motorized vehicle crime rate, which fell by 25.8%.A preliminary review of FBI data showed that anti-Latino hate crime incidents increased 18% nationwide from 2024 to 2025.According to the 2025 California Crime Report, there were 3.6% more arrests made last year than in 2024.

“Our policing has gotten smarter, more organized, and more coordinated,” Bonta said in a statement.“We’ve created successful organized retail theft programs, human trafficking and fentanyl task forces, and programs targeting violent criminals.”In Los Angeles alone, preliminary data show that crime rates dropped to a historic low last year not seen since the 1960s, and that L.A.

is the safest it has been in generations.But experts cautioned against reading too much into year-over-year numbers tha...