Are fewer getting arrested for property crimes in California? See how well your cops clear cases
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California cops are catching fewer thieves and burglars, new state data show.
Law enforcement agencies reported about 889,000 property crimes last year and cleared about 70,000 of them, for a clearance rate of about 7.8%, according to data released this month by the state Department of Justice. It was the third consecutive year that the state’s property crime clearance rate was below 8%. A decade earlier, the clearance rate was around 14%. In the early 1990s, it was around 16%.
Each police agency reports the number of crimes and clearances every year to the state. A clearance usually means police arrested someone for the crime. Agencies can also clear a crime by “exceptional means” if they know who did it, know where that person is, but can’t arrest that person for reasons outside their control, such as the death of the suspect.
Property crime is a hot topic in California. Videos showing suspects brazenly shoplifting at different locations across the state have gone viral in recent years, creating an image that California doesn’t take property crime seriously.
Law enforcement officials said they are hamstrung by Prop 47, an initiative approved by voters in 2014 that reduced the punishment for some property crimes and set a $950 threshold for felony shoplifting. An effort to revise Prop 47 and increase penalties for some property crimes will appear on the ballot this November.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly called for measures to reduce property crime. Newsom and state legislature leaders are pushing a package of bills that would tighten penalties for retail theft. They say the changes will make it unnecessary for voters to revise Prop 47 in November.
Property crime reports fell about 3% from 2019 through 2023 while the number of property crime clearances fell by 29%. Importantly, many people don’t bother reporting property crime — fewer than one-third of property crimes in 2022 nationwide were reported to police, according to a recent federal survey.
Property crime clearance rates vary widely in California.
Among large local police agencies, the lowest property crime clearance rate last year was in Oakland. Police in Oakland reported 43,000 property crimes but only cleared 40, for a clearance rate of 0.1%. In other words, criminals got away with property crimes 999 times out of 1,000 in Oakland last year, state data show.
Among local law enforcement agencies in the Sacramento region, the UC Davis Police Department reported the lowest property crime clearance rate last year. Police at UC Davis cleared four of 853 property crimes in 2023, for a clearance rate of 0.5%. Bicycle thefts were the most common type of property crime reported at UC Davis.
Asked about the low clearance rate, UC Davis spokesperson Bill Kisliuk said the university will invest more than $20 million during the next five years to improve campus security. Improvements will include better outdoor lighting, additional emergency call boxes, more security cameras and enhanced card access to campus buildings. Kisliuk also said police officials would make sure they are correctly reporting crimes and clearances to the state. He encouraged students to register and secure valuable possessions.
Other police agencies in the Sacramento region reported a wide range of property crime clearance rates. Sacramento Police cleared 6% of property crimes in 2023, while the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department cleared 8% of property crimes. Elk Grove Police cleared 12.8% of property crimes. Both the Folsom and Roseville Police Departments reported clearing 15.1% of property crimes, nearly double the statewide clearance rate.
