This is the blueprint which I have used for my advocacy efforts, which focus on increasing awareness and engagement in the community. Check them out here: https://rajnimandal.substack.com/
Thank you, I have bookmarked your links for later.
These politicians almost never have the political will to implement known and proven solutions. Oakland's "leaders" govern by ideology rather than data to drive their decisions.
For example, Ceasefire requires a "carrot and stick" approach to work. But former mayor Jean Quan's administration's approach was to offer the carrot and drop the stick from their formula.
Reminder - Jean Quan endorsed Pam Price for DA in the April 2026 elections even though Pam was recalled resoundingly.
I know this is the past but I am trying to show the mindset of these "leaders" because they still have some influence today, to our disadvantage. They may not win elections but their friends are.
Oakland's property crime would certainly be much higher if people weren't discouraged by the lack of OPD response. Crimes of opportunity against contractors is rampant and so bad that PGE has armed guards at their work sites.
The crime data shows that Oakland's crime decreased during mayor Libby's era.
Remember, former council representative Rebecca Kaplan tried to rewrite history by claiming that crime was out of control during Libby's term. Rebecca, along with Nikki Bas, used this lie and the direction of the political winds at the time to support reallocating funds and reduce spending on police operations. Libby and former representative Loren Taylor opposed these reductions, labeling the council's proposed cuts "dangerous and irresponsible" and arguing they would harm emergency response capabilities.
Thanks for this article Sean. We can solve Oakland's crime in all areas, if we had an approach to develop our great city. Was does Oakland rank so high in crime, for decades is because we have taken our busniness and manufacturing out of city, at the same time we have tied the hands of our police officers and do not have a policy of holding people responsible for their actions.. People turn to crime when there is no vision of a future and human dignity. Mindy Pechenuk, candidate for Oakland Mayor
Also, people commit crimes in Oakland because it is easy to get away with it.
I searched but was not able to get a hit on a Chip Johnson article where he interviewed a few OPD officers on why kids commit crimes and they told him that the kids said, "because its easy". Chip's article was driven by some of the city council member's claims that kids rob so they can afford baby-wipes, rent, ...
Hopefully with the end of federal oversight OPD will be a better place to work and have better morale and higher retention. Not surprised at the low clearance rates for property crimes with the abysmal staffing levels and previous DA lack of willingness to prosecute. Hopefully with the new DA and police chief things will continue to improve.
Will we hold individuals accountable for their actions? Or will we (as a community and society) continue to rationalize individual misdeeds as 'not their fault' and symptoms of societal problems yet to be solved? If we cannot answer that simple question, we will never have law enforcement and we will never develop responsible adult citizens.
Western society has become increasingly uncomfortable with answering this question and will continue to fail its citizens until we all rediscover the courage to defend our heritage. Despite all the historical failures and problems, it is the best our species has so far developed and is worth preserving and continuing to improve.
You did it again!! I’m going to have to read this again to digest the data. I have always wondered if transportation hubs - port cities and cities with big cargo airports - have higher property crime because it’s so easy to supply international markets with stolen goods. There is a great episode of Trafficked that focused on high end cars being stolen in the eastern US and sold in West Africa. It’s a fascinating episode. Do we sense that the high property crime is part of an organized effort (stolen yoga pants ending up on Amazon) or is it a sense of desperation (people who have been shut out by the system seeking to survive)? Perhaps both? I do have a hypothesis for a 100% effective solution to preventing car theft. Sell your car. Ride the bus. At the end of the day, I do take encouragement in having the right leadership at OPD. Chief Beere was an excellent choice. These types of challenges do not have simple or immediate solutions. I’m swimming out of my lane with crime, but it’s fascinating. I do believe there is a strong connection to global transportation though.
Someone had the theory that select neighborhoods in Oakland are easier to commit crimes in because of their proximity to highways along with the knowledge that OPD has a no chase policy.
Since the "Defund the Police" insanity, property crime in Montclair (*) and other neighborhoods (Lower Redwood Heights, Pansy Hill, ...) increased exponentially and these neighborhoods are within a short drive to highways 13 and 580 (on maps, you'll see a triangle that sits between 13 and 580)
Before the Defund the Police movement, Montclair used to have at least 2 OPD officers on patrol but due to the shortage of officers, they have been reallocated to other areas in East Oakland.
I visited Oakland in September 2023 and stayed at the Homewood Suites on Embarcadero. I was standing outside waiting for an uber when a blacked out Charger pulled into the parking lot and the passenger jumped out and stole a bunch of license plates. They jumped on I-880 and were gone. I have seen many situations where good transportation access can serve as a negative and be a good environment for property crime. I was once asked how to stop the auto break ins along Embarcadero. I said I would close the ramp to I-880. Everyone looked at me like I had three heads. I get that a lot!! These highways provide good access for everyone.
And Berkeley is about the highest for comparably sized cities in the U.S. for property crimes and UC Berkeley is one of the unsafest college campuses in the country. And yet the push to defund and disable policing continues, a refusal to face reality and return to some imaginary leftist paradise that funny enough only existed before Berkeley went Marxist.
Also Sean, looks like you got the Berkeley data too. Hard to read that chart you provided breaking down crime rates in select cities on a phone. Am I reading it right that Berkeley is 3rd highest in that group of cities in terms of the crime rate data?
OAKLAND’S CRIME BURDEN IS REAL. SO IS ITS PROGRESS.- PART 1 OF 2
By John Mimosa Marks
I approach this issue not only as someone who follows Oakland policy, but as a currently homeless resident who experiences the consequences of public safety, homelessness policy, and government performance from a particularly vulnerable position.
I am also the founder and director of Homeless Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 33-3800358, established to address shortcomings in homeless services and develop responses informed by people who have experienced those systems firsthand. The organization is operated entirely by currently and formerly homeless people. I am writing solely in my personal capacity, however, and not on behalf of Homeless Incorporated or anyone associated with it.
My circumstances do not make my interpretation of the evidence automatically correct. They do mean that the difference between improving statistics and deteriorating conditions is not an abstract political question for me. I want Oakland’s problems described honestly. I also want measurable progress acknowledged honestly.
Oakland Report is right to insist that recent improvement should not erase Oakland’s longstanding public-safety problems. Oakland continues to experience unacceptably high levels of violent and property crime, insufficient police staffing, and deeply troubling reported clearance rates. Those conditions demand attention.¹
But the report’s historical rankings do not fully answer the central question raised by Mayor Barbara Lee’s first year in office:
Is Oakland becoming safer now?
On that narrower and more immediate question, the most recent evidence points toward meaningful improvement.
HISTORICAL STANDING AND RECENT DIRECTION MEASURE DIFFERENT THINGS
Oakland Report examines crime data from 2010 through 2025 and concludes that Oakland remained an extreme outlier among its California comparison cities. That is important context. It tells us how serious Oakland’s public-safety burden remains and how far the city must go before its outcomes resemble those of most neighboring jurisdictions.¹
But a 15-year historical comparison and an assessment of the current administration answer different questions.
Historical crime rates show where Oakland stands after years of accumulated policy decisions, economic changes, police staffing problems, prosecutorial approaches, social disruption, and multiple mayoral administrations. Recent changes show the city’s present direction.
A city beginning from an exceptionally high crime rate can experience a major reduction and still remain near the top of a statewide or national ranking. Its continued high ranking does not make the reduction meaningless. Likewise, the reduction does not make the remaining crime burden acceptable.
The fairest analysis must consider both the current level of crime and its recent direction.
OAKLAND’S 2025 REDUCTIONS WERE BROAD AND SUBSTANTIAL
Oakland’s improvement during 2025 was not confined to one offense or one statistical category.
According to city figures reported by The Oaklandside, Oakland experienced an approximately 25% reduction in violent crime during 2025. Commercial burglaries decreased by 47%, motor-vehicle thefts by 39%, and carjackings by 49%. The city counted 67 homicides, including 57 classified as murder, compared with 86 homicides in 2024.²
The California Department of Justice uses a different counting methodology. The state figures cited by Oakland Report recorded 55 homicides in 2025, down from 81 in 2024 and 127 in 2021. The city and state totals should not be treated as interchangeable, but both series show the same unmistakable result: lethal violence declined substantially.¹, ³
Homicide is especially important because it is much less vulnerable than property crime to changes in residents’ willingness to file police reports. The differing definitions create uncertainty over the exact total, but not over the direction or historical importance of the decline.
Whether one uses the city or state series, fewer Oakland families lost loved ones to violence in 2025 than during the recent peak.
THE IMPROVEMENT CONTINUED INTO 2026
Early 2026 data strengthened the case that Oakland’s progress was not confined to a single favorable year.
From January 1 through March 31, 2026, reported Part I crimes fell 29% from the corresponding period in 2025. Within that broader category:
• Homicides fell from 23 to 14, a 39% reduction.
• Robberies fell from 537 to 374, a 30% reduction.
• Aggravated assaults fell from 678 to 588, a 13% reduction.
• Reported rapes fell from 46 to 23, a 50% reduction.
• Burglaries fell from 2,424 to 1,124, a 54% reduction.⁴
These figures should be presented precisely. The 29% figure refers to reported Part I offenses, a broader category that includes burglary. KQED separately reported that violent crime was down 22% during the first quarter of 2026. Those figures describe overlapping but not identical categories and should not be blended into a single range. Both, however, indicate continued improvement.⁴, ⁵
By July 2026, reporting surrounding Mayor Lee’s appointment of James Beere as Oakland’s permanent police chief indicated that violent crime was 23% below the three-year average. That benchmark is different from a year-over-year comparison, but it provides additional evidence that reported violence remained below Oakland’s recent norm.⁶
First-quarter figures can be volatile, and they do not guarantee what the full 2026 calendar year will show. Nevertheless, broad reductions across homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, reported rape, and burglary deserve substantial analytical weight.
OAKLAND ACHIEVED THIS PROGRESS DESPITE SERIOUS STAFFING CONSTRAINTS
Oakland’s police staffing situation makes the recent results more notable, not less.
OPD’s March 2026 staffing report identified 618 filled sworn positions against 678 authorized and funded positions. The department was therefore 60 officers below its authorized strength. The report also showed that filled staffing had declined from 723 officers at the beginning of 2021 to 607 at the beginning of 2026 before increasing to 618 later that January.⁷
Department leaders have said that OPD would like at least 700 officers. A January 2026 academy graduation added 14 officers, but those graduates still faced approximately six months of field training. The police union also reported that 75 officers had left the department during the preceding year.⁸
Filled positions should not be confused with fully deployable officers. A February 2026 OPD overtime report identified 617 filled sworn positions, but reported that 83 employees were entirely off work because of medical, military, or administrative leave. Another 25 were assigned to modified duty and could not perform the full responsibilities of a police officer. According to that report, 108 sworn personnel, approximately 17% of filled positions, were not fully deployable.¹⁰
Oakland Report subsequently stated that approximately 618 sworn positions were filled but that roughly 72 officers were on leave or otherwise unavailable, leaving approximately 546 active-duty sworn officers as of July 2026.¹
The figures use somewhat different definitions and reporting dates, but they point toward the same underlying problem: Oakland’s filled headcount substantially overstated the personnel available for ordinary police deployment.
This does not prove that current strategies caused the crime decline. It does establish that Oakland’s improvement cannot be explained by a massive expansion of the police force. The reductions occurred while OPD remained understaffed, experienced substantial attrition, and operated under long-running federal reform obligations.
That is relevant context when evaluating Mayor Lee’s description of an “all hands on deck” approach. The phrase should not be interpreted to mean that Oakland has all the personnel it needs. It can reasonably describe an effort to coordinate the limited resources the city actually has.
CITY COMPARISONS SHOULD MEASURE BOTH BURDEN AND PROGRESS
Oakland Report compares Oakland with cities including Fremont, Santa Clara, San Jose, Alameda, Berkeley, Sacramento, Richmond, Riverside, Long Beach, and San Diego.¹
Those comparisons are useful, but they should not be asked to do more than the data permit.
Crime rates per 100,000 residents help measure Oakland’s present burden relative to other cities. Percentage changes help measure whether conditions are improving or deteriorating. A city may perform badly on the first measure while performing well on the second.
Oakland’s persistently high crime rates demonstrate that it has much more work to do. Its recent reductions demonstrate that the city is not standing still.
An honest assessment should not use recent improvement to conceal Oakland’s unfavorable rankings. It should also not use those rankings to erase recent improvement.
CLEARANCE RATES REMAIN A SERIOUS REASON FOR CONCERN
Oakland Report’s clearance-rate findings are among its strongest arguments and should not be minimized.
A reported violent-crime clearance rate below 10% would indicate a severe investigative-capacity problem if it fully represents actual case outcomes. The reported property-crime clearance figures are even more alarming. Residents should be able to expect that crimes will be investigated accurately, evidence will be preserved, and offenders will face a meaningful likelihood of identification and accountability.¹
At the same time, Oakland Report acknowledges that the property-crime clearance figures are so close to zero that problems with recordkeeping and data transmission may contribute to the result. A clearance is an administrative measure, not a conviction, and a clearance reported in one year may involve an offense reported during an earlier year.¹
OAKLAND’S CRIME BURDEN IS REAL. SO IS ITS PROGRESS.- PART 2 OF 2
This does not make clearance rates unimportant. It means Oakland must improve both its investigative performance and the reliability of the information systems used to record and transmit investigative outcomes.
Declining reported victimization and weak clearance performance can exist simultaneously. Evidence of one does not invalidate evidence of the other.
WHAT CAN FAIRLY BE SAID ABOUT MAYOR BARBARA LEE?
Mayor Lee cannot reasonably claim exclusive credit for Oakland’s crime reduction.
The improvement began before she took office. Oakland is also participating in a broader national decline in violence, and the available data cannot isolate the effects of one mayor, police chief, district attorney, state partnership, violence-prevention program, policing strategy, or economic change.², ⁵
But fairness requires applying that caution consistently.
If correlation does not prove that Lee caused the decline, a trend beginning in 2010 also cannot serve as a meaningful verdict on a mayor who took office in 2025. That timeline encompasses multiple mayors, police chiefs, district attorneys, economic cycles, state policies, and major social disruptions.
The measured conclusion is that Lee inherited an improving trend and, during her first year, that improvement continued rather than reversing.
Her administration has maintained a strategy combining conventional policing, Ceasefire and community violence intervention, alternative crisis response, police recruiting, regional coordination, and investment in young people.
The city reports that the Lee administration invested in five new police academies, expanded Ceasefire, restored the OPD Cadet Program, conducted public-safety town halls, supported regional coordination, and expanded youth employment and related services. Because these claims come from the mayor’s official account, they should be evaluated as such. They nevertheless identify concrete actions against which the administration can be held accountable.⁹
None of these actions proves that Lee caused the reductions. They do support a narrower and more defensible conclusion: her administration has prioritized public safety through a combination of enforcement, prevention, intervention, recruitment, and regional collaboration, and improving outcomes have continued during her tenure.
That is not proof of complete success.
It is also not evidence of failure.
THE MOST COMPLETE READING OF THE EVIDENCE
Oakland remains a city with a serious crime burden. It needs more deployable officers, stronger investigations, more reliable reporting systems, higher clearance rates, and public-safety gains that reach every neighborhood.
Residents who still feel unsafe are not wrong merely because a citywide statistic improved. Conditions vary across neighborhoods, and the experience of crime is not distributed equally.⁵
But a city that substantially reduced homicides from their recent peak, recorded broad reductions in serious crime during 2025, and continued those gains into at least the first part of 2026 is not a city without progress.
Those improvements are particularly notable because they occurred while OPD remained below its authorized staffing level and had substantially fewer officers available for full deployment.¹, ², ⁴, ⁶, ⁷, ¹⁰
The honest conclusion is not that Oakland has solved crime.
Nor is it that Oakland’s progress is meaningless because its historical rankings remain poor.
The honest conclusion is that Oakland still has a long distance to travel, but the latest evidence shows that it is traveling in the right direction. Under Mayor Lee, that progress has continued. It deserves recognition alongside honest scrutiny of the problems that remain.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I write in my personal capacity as a currently homeless Oakland resident, community volunteer, and founder and director of Homeless Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 33-3800358. Homeless Incorporated was created to address shortcomings in homeless services and is operated entirely by people who are currently or formerly homeless.
The views and conclusions expressed here are my own. This commentary is not an official statement, endorsement, or position of Homeless Incorporated or anyone associated with the organization.
I encourage Oakland residents, public officials, service providers, and community organizations to examine the cited evidence, recognize progress where it is occurring, and work together on the serious public-safety and homelessness challenges that remain. People directly affected by crime and homelessness should not merely be discussed. We should be included in designing, implementing, and evaluating the solutions.
Lots of people reading this may just throw up their arms and feel helpless at this chronic situation. Last year, the Bay Area Council published an evidence based report about Oakland's crime and its impact on its economy, with clear recommendations. These include changes in police oversight, technology, recruitment/staffing, and economic investments in crime prevention programs. https://www.bayareacouncil.org/public-safety/new-economic-and-policy-report-finds-oakland-can-reverse-downward-budget-spiral-by-expanding-public-safety-investments/
This is the blueprint which I have used for my advocacy efforts, which focus on increasing awareness and engagement in the community. Check them out here: https://rajnimandal.substack.com/
Thank you, I have bookmarked your links for later.
These politicians almost never have the political will to implement known and proven solutions. Oakland's "leaders" govern by ideology rather than data to drive their decisions.
For example, Ceasefire requires a "carrot and stick" approach to work. But former mayor Jean Quan's administration's approach was to offer the carrot and drop the stick from their formula.
Reminder - Jean Quan endorsed Pam Price for DA in the April 2026 elections even though Pam was recalled resoundingly.
I know this is the past but I am trying to show the mindset of these "leaders" because they still have some influence today, to our disadvantage. They may not win elections but their friends are.
Oakland's property crime would certainly be much higher if people weren't discouraged by the lack of OPD response. Crimes of opportunity against contractors is rampant and so bad that PGE has armed guards at their work sites.
No sane person will believe the mayor's claims.
There are a lot of insane and mentally ill voters in Oakland and they typically share a similar demographic….
The crime data shows that Oakland's crime decreased during mayor Libby's era.
Remember, former council representative Rebecca Kaplan tried to rewrite history by claiming that crime was out of control during Libby's term. Rebecca, along with Nikki Bas, used this lie and the direction of the political winds at the time to support reallocating funds and reduce spending on police operations. Libby and former representative Loren Taylor opposed these reductions, labeling the council's proposed cuts "dangerous and irresponsible" and arguing they would harm emergency response capabilities.
Thanks for this article Sean. We can solve Oakland's crime in all areas, if we had an approach to develop our great city. Was does Oakland rank so high in crime, for decades is because we have taken our busniness and manufacturing out of city, at the same time we have tied the hands of our police officers and do not have a policy of holding people responsible for their actions.. People turn to crime when there is no vision of a future and human dignity. Mindy Pechenuk, candidate for Oakland Mayor
Also, people commit crimes in Oakland because it is easy to get away with it.
I searched but was not able to get a hit on a Chip Johnson article where he interviewed a few OPD officers on why kids commit crimes and they told him that the kids said, "because its easy". Chip's article was driven by some of the city council member's claims that kids rob so they can afford baby-wipes, rent, ...
Hopefully with the end of federal oversight OPD will be a better place to work and have better morale and higher retention. Not surprised at the low clearance rates for property crimes with the abysmal staffing levels and previous DA lack of willingness to prosecute. Hopefully with the new DA and police chief things will continue to improve.
Will we hold individuals accountable for their actions? Or will we (as a community and society) continue to rationalize individual misdeeds as 'not their fault' and symptoms of societal problems yet to be solved? If we cannot answer that simple question, we will never have law enforcement and we will never develop responsible adult citizens.
Western society has become increasingly uncomfortable with answering this question and will continue to fail its citizens until we all rediscover the courage to defend our heritage. Despite all the historical failures and problems, it is the best our species has so far developed and is worth preserving and continuing to improve.
Thank you, your comment on being uncomfortable reminds me of a Chip Johnson article :
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Oakland-crime-issue-goes-far-deeper-than-racial-5355633.php
You did it again!! I’m going to have to read this again to digest the data. I have always wondered if transportation hubs - port cities and cities with big cargo airports - have higher property crime because it’s so easy to supply international markets with stolen goods. There is a great episode of Trafficked that focused on high end cars being stolen in the eastern US and sold in West Africa. It’s a fascinating episode. Do we sense that the high property crime is part of an organized effort (stolen yoga pants ending up on Amazon) or is it a sense of desperation (people who have been shut out by the system seeking to survive)? Perhaps both? I do have a hypothesis for a 100% effective solution to preventing car theft. Sell your car. Ride the bus. At the end of the day, I do take encouragement in having the right leadership at OPD. Chief Beere was an excellent choice. These types of challenges do not have simple or immediate solutions. I’m swimming out of my lane with crime, but it’s fascinating. I do believe there is a strong connection to global transportation though.
Someone had the theory that select neighborhoods in Oakland are easier to commit crimes in because of their proximity to highways along with the knowledge that OPD has a no chase policy.
Since the "Defund the Police" insanity, property crime in Montclair (*) and other neighborhoods (Lower Redwood Heights, Pansy Hill, ...) increased exponentially and these neighborhoods are within a short drive to highways 13 and 580 (on maps, you'll see a triangle that sits between 13 and 580)
Before the Defund the Police movement, Montclair used to have at least 2 OPD officers on patrol but due to the shortage of officers, they have been reallocated to other areas in East Oakland.
I visited Oakland in September 2023 and stayed at the Homewood Suites on Embarcadero. I was standing outside waiting for an uber when a blacked out Charger pulled into the parking lot and the passenger jumped out and stole a bunch of license plates. They jumped on I-880 and were gone. I have seen many situations where good transportation access can serve as a negative and be a good environment for property crime. I was once asked how to stop the auto break ins along Embarcadero. I said I would close the ramp to I-880. Everyone looked at me like I had three heads. I get that a lot!! These highways provide good access for everyone.
Please send a copy of this to Judge Orrick and the OPD civilian oversight board
And Berkeley is about the highest for comparably sized cities in the U.S. for property crimes and UC Berkeley is one of the unsafest college campuses in the country. And yet the push to defund and disable policing continues, a refusal to face reality and return to some imaginary leftist paradise that funny enough only existed before Berkeley went Marxist.
Also Sean, looks like you got the Berkeley data too. Hard to read that chart you provided breaking down crime rates in select cities on a phone. Am I reading it right that Berkeley is 3rd highest in that group of cities in terms of the crime rate data?
Leaping Lemur — Thank you for your comment. The interactive versions of all the charts are hosted here:
https://www.citizensoakland.org/oakland-highest-property-crime
Tap any chart or the “explore the data” buttons in the article to navigate to the interactive charts.
Thank you again for your comment, and for reading Oakland Report.
OAKLAND’S CRIME BURDEN IS REAL. SO IS ITS PROGRESS.- PART 1 OF 2
By John Mimosa Marks
I approach this issue not only as someone who follows Oakland policy, but as a currently homeless resident who experiences the consequences of public safety, homelessness policy, and government performance from a particularly vulnerable position.
I am also the founder and director of Homeless Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 33-3800358, established to address shortcomings in homeless services and develop responses informed by people who have experienced those systems firsthand. The organization is operated entirely by currently and formerly homeless people. I am writing solely in my personal capacity, however, and not on behalf of Homeless Incorporated or anyone associated with it.
My circumstances do not make my interpretation of the evidence automatically correct. They do mean that the difference between improving statistics and deteriorating conditions is not an abstract political question for me. I want Oakland’s problems described honestly. I also want measurable progress acknowledged honestly.
Oakland Report is right to insist that recent improvement should not erase Oakland’s longstanding public-safety problems. Oakland continues to experience unacceptably high levels of violent and property crime, insufficient police staffing, and deeply troubling reported clearance rates. Those conditions demand attention.¹
But the report’s historical rankings do not fully answer the central question raised by Mayor Barbara Lee’s first year in office:
Is Oakland becoming safer now?
On that narrower and more immediate question, the most recent evidence points toward meaningful improvement.
HISTORICAL STANDING AND RECENT DIRECTION MEASURE DIFFERENT THINGS
Oakland Report examines crime data from 2010 through 2025 and concludes that Oakland remained an extreme outlier among its California comparison cities. That is important context. It tells us how serious Oakland’s public-safety burden remains and how far the city must go before its outcomes resemble those of most neighboring jurisdictions.¹
But a 15-year historical comparison and an assessment of the current administration answer different questions.
Historical crime rates show where Oakland stands after years of accumulated policy decisions, economic changes, police staffing problems, prosecutorial approaches, social disruption, and multiple mayoral administrations. Recent changes show the city’s present direction.
A city beginning from an exceptionally high crime rate can experience a major reduction and still remain near the top of a statewide or national ranking. Its continued high ranking does not make the reduction meaningless. Likewise, the reduction does not make the remaining crime burden acceptable.
The fairest analysis must consider both the current level of crime and its recent direction.
OAKLAND’S 2025 REDUCTIONS WERE BROAD AND SUBSTANTIAL
Oakland’s improvement during 2025 was not confined to one offense or one statistical category.
According to city figures reported by The Oaklandside, Oakland experienced an approximately 25% reduction in violent crime during 2025. Commercial burglaries decreased by 47%, motor-vehicle thefts by 39%, and carjackings by 49%. The city counted 67 homicides, including 57 classified as murder, compared with 86 homicides in 2024.²
The California Department of Justice uses a different counting methodology. The state figures cited by Oakland Report recorded 55 homicides in 2025, down from 81 in 2024 and 127 in 2021. The city and state totals should not be treated as interchangeable, but both series show the same unmistakable result: lethal violence declined substantially.¹, ³
Homicide is especially important because it is much less vulnerable than property crime to changes in residents’ willingness to file police reports. The differing definitions create uncertainty over the exact total, but not over the direction or historical importance of the decline.
Whether one uses the city or state series, fewer Oakland families lost loved ones to violence in 2025 than during the recent peak.
THE IMPROVEMENT CONTINUED INTO 2026
Early 2026 data strengthened the case that Oakland’s progress was not confined to a single favorable year.
From January 1 through March 31, 2026, reported Part I crimes fell 29% from the corresponding period in 2025. Within that broader category:
• Homicides fell from 23 to 14, a 39% reduction.
• Robberies fell from 537 to 374, a 30% reduction.
• Aggravated assaults fell from 678 to 588, a 13% reduction.
• Reported rapes fell from 46 to 23, a 50% reduction.
• Burglaries fell from 2,424 to 1,124, a 54% reduction.⁴
These figures should be presented precisely. The 29% figure refers to reported Part I offenses, a broader category that includes burglary. KQED separately reported that violent crime was down 22% during the first quarter of 2026. Those figures describe overlapping but not identical categories and should not be blended into a single range. Both, however, indicate continued improvement.⁴, ⁵
By July 2026, reporting surrounding Mayor Lee’s appointment of James Beere as Oakland’s permanent police chief indicated that violent crime was 23% below the three-year average. That benchmark is different from a year-over-year comparison, but it provides additional evidence that reported violence remained below Oakland’s recent norm.⁶
First-quarter figures can be volatile, and they do not guarantee what the full 2026 calendar year will show. Nevertheless, broad reductions across homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, reported rape, and burglary deserve substantial analytical weight.
OAKLAND ACHIEVED THIS PROGRESS DESPITE SERIOUS STAFFING CONSTRAINTS
Oakland’s police staffing situation makes the recent results more notable, not less.
OPD’s March 2026 staffing report identified 618 filled sworn positions against 678 authorized and funded positions. The department was therefore 60 officers below its authorized strength. The report also showed that filled staffing had declined from 723 officers at the beginning of 2021 to 607 at the beginning of 2026 before increasing to 618 later that January.⁷
Department leaders have said that OPD would like at least 700 officers. A January 2026 academy graduation added 14 officers, but those graduates still faced approximately six months of field training. The police union also reported that 75 officers had left the department during the preceding year.⁸
Filled positions should not be confused with fully deployable officers. A February 2026 OPD overtime report identified 617 filled sworn positions, but reported that 83 employees were entirely off work because of medical, military, or administrative leave. Another 25 were assigned to modified duty and could not perform the full responsibilities of a police officer. According to that report, 108 sworn personnel, approximately 17% of filled positions, were not fully deployable.¹⁰
Oakland Report subsequently stated that approximately 618 sworn positions were filled but that roughly 72 officers were on leave or otherwise unavailable, leaving approximately 546 active-duty sworn officers as of July 2026.¹
The figures use somewhat different definitions and reporting dates, but they point toward the same underlying problem: Oakland’s filled headcount substantially overstated the personnel available for ordinary police deployment.
This does not prove that current strategies caused the crime decline. It does establish that Oakland’s improvement cannot be explained by a massive expansion of the police force. The reductions occurred while OPD remained understaffed, experienced substantial attrition, and operated under long-running federal reform obligations.
That is relevant context when evaluating Mayor Lee’s description of an “all hands on deck” approach. The phrase should not be interpreted to mean that Oakland has all the personnel it needs. It can reasonably describe an effort to coordinate the limited resources the city actually has.
CITY COMPARISONS SHOULD MEASURE BOTH BURDEN AND PROGRESS
Oakland Report compares Oakland with cities including Fremont, Santa Clara, San Jose, Alameda, Berkeley, Sacramento, Richmond, Riverside, Long Beach, and San Diego.¹
Those comparisons are useful, but they should not be asked to do more than the data permit.
Crime rates per 100,000 residents help measure Oakland’s present burden relative to other cities. Percentage changes help measure whether conditions are improving or deteriorating. A city may perform badly on the first measure while performing well on the second.
Oakland’s persistently high crime rates demonstrate that it has much more work to do. Its recent reductions demonstrate that the city is not standing still.
An honest assessment should not use recent improvement to conceal Oakland’s unfavorable rankings. It should also not use those rankings to erase recent improvement.
CLEARANCE RATES REMAIN A SERIOUS REASON FOR CONCERN
Oakland Report’s clearance-rate findings are among its strongest arguments and should not be minimized.
A reported violent-crime clearance rate below 10% would indicate a severe investigative-capacity problem if it fully represents actual case outcomes. The reported property-crime clearance figures are even more alarming. Residents should be able to expect that crimes will be investigated accurately, evidence will be preserved, and offenders will face a meaningful likelihood of identification and accountability.¹
At the same time, Oakland Report acknowledges that the property-crime clearance figures are so close to zero that problems with recordkeeping and data transmission may contribute to the result. A clearance is an administrative measure, not a conviction, and a clearance reported in one year may involve an offense reported during an earlier year.¹
OAKLAND’S CRIME BURDEN IS REAL. SO IS ITS PROGRESS.- PART 2 OF 2
This does not make clearance rates unimportant. It means Oakland must improve both its investigative performance and the reliability of the information systems used to record and transmit investigative outcomes.
Declining reported victimization and weak clearance performance can exist simultaneously. Evidence of one does not invalidate evidence of the other.
WHAT CAN FAIRLY BE SAID ABOUT MAYOR BARBARA LEE?
Mayor Lee cannot reasonably claim exclusive credit for Oakland’s crime reduction.
The improvement began before she took office. Oakland is also participating in a broader national decline in violence, and the available data cannot isolate the effects of one mayor, police chief, district attorney, state partnership, violence-prevention program, policing strategy, or economic change.², ⁵
But fairness requires applying that caution consistently.
If correlation does not prove that Lee caused the decline, a trend beginning in 2010 also cannot serve as a meaningful verdict on a mayor who took office in 2025. That timeline encompasses multiple mayors, police chiefs, district attorneys, economic cycles, state policies, and major social disruptions.
The measured conclusion is that Lee inherited an improving trend and, during her first year, that improvement continued rather than reversing.
Her administration has maintained a strategy combining conventional policing, Ceasefire and community violence intervention, alternative crisis response, police recruiting, regional coordination, and investment in young people.
The city reports that the Lee administration invested in five new police academies, expanded Ceasefire, restored the OPD Cadet Program, conducted public-safety town halls, supported regional coordination, and expanded youth employment and related services. Because these claims come from the mayor’s official account, they should be evaluated as such. They nevertheless identify concrete actions against which the administration can be held accountable.⁹
None of these actions proves that Lee caused the reductions. They do support a narrower and more defensible conclusion: her administration has prioritized public safety through a combination of enforcement, prevention, intervention, recruitment, and regional collaboration, and improving outcomes have continued during her tenure.
That is not proof of complete success.
It is also not evidence of failure.
THE MOST COMPLETE READING OF THE EVIDENCE
Oakland remains a city with a serious crime burden. It needs more deployable officers, stronger investigations, more reliable reporting systems, higher clearance rates, and public-safety gains that reach every neighborhood.
Residents who still feel unsafe are not wrong merely because a citywide statistic improved. Conditions vary across neighborhoods, and the experience of crime is not distributed equally.⁵
But a city that substantially reduced homicides from their recent peak, recorded broad reductions in serious crime during 2025, and continued those gains into at least the first part of 2026 is not a city without progress.
Those improvements are particularly notable because they occurred while OPD remained below its authorized staffing level and had substantially fewer officers available for full deployment.¹, ², ⁴, ⁶, ⁷, ¹⁰
The honest conclusion is not that Oakland has solved crime.
Nor is it that Oakland’s progress is meaningless because its historical rankings remain poor.
The honest conclusion is that Oakland still has a long distance to travel, but the latest evidence shows that it is traveling in the right direction. Under Mayor Lee, that progress has continued. It deserves recognition alongside honest scrutiny of the problems that remain.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I write in my personal capacity as a currently homeless Oakland resident, community volunteer, and founder and director of Homeless Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 33-3800358. Homeless Incorporated was created to address shortcomings in homeless services and is operated entirely by people who are currently or formerly homeless.
The views and conclusions expressed here are my own. This commentary is not an official statement, endorsement, or position of Homeless Incorporated or anyone associated with the organization.
I encourage Oakland residents, public officials, service providers, and community organizations to examine the cited evidence, recognize progress where it is occurring, and work together on the serious public-safety and homelessness challenges that remain. People directly affected by crime and homelessness should not merely be discussed. We should be included in designing, implementing, and evaluating the solutions.
SOURCES
1.Reinhart, S. S. (2026, August 2). Oakland has the #1 property crime rate in America. Oakland Report. https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oakland-highest-property-crime-in-america
2.Romero, R. (2026, January 7). Oakland saw a historic drop in homicides in 2025: City leaders aren’t declaring victory yet. The Oaklandside. https://oaklandside.org/2026/01/07/oakland-homicides-crime-down-public-safety-2025/
3.California Department of Justice. (2026, July). Crime in California 2025. Office of the Attorney General. https://data-openjustice.doj.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/Crime%20In%20CA%202025f.pdf
4.Fang, T. (2026, April 2). Crime in Oakland drops nearly 30% to start 2026, police say. CBS News Bay Area. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/oakland-crime-drop-2026-1st-quarter-police-data/
5.Kennedy, S., & Castro, G. (2026, April 5). Oakland crime plunges in 2026, but many residents haven’t felt the shift. KQED. https://www.kqed.org/news/12078769/oakland-crime-plunges-in-2026-but-many-residents-havent-felt-the-shift
6.Romero, R. (2026, July 9). James Beere is Oakland’s new permanent police chief. The Oaklandside. https://oaklandside.org/2026/07/09/james-beere-oakland-police-chief-appointed/
7.Oakland Police Department. (2026, March 12). OPD staffing report [Informational report]. City of Oakland. https://oakland.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?m=l&id=/matter.aspx?key=37079
8.Lee, H. (2026, January 16). Oakland police grow by 14 officers, but department says more needed. KTVU FOX 2. https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-grow-14-officers-more-needed
9.City of Oakland, Office of Mayor Barbara Lee. (2026). Public safety and investing in youth. https://www.oaklandca.gov/Government/City-Council-Leadership/Leadership/Office-of-the-Mayor/One-Year-of-Action/Public-Safety-and-Investing-In-Youth
10.Oakland Police Department. (2026, February 20). OPD overtime report [Informational report]. City of Oakland. https://oaklandside.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/View-Report-2026-03-06T093201.883.pdf