Oakland has the #1 property crime rate in America
Oakland also has the #1 violent crime rate in California — and the lowest rate of solved crimes of any major city in the nation.
Video montage 1: Oakland mayor Barbara Lee claims that “crime rates are coming down in all categories” in a television interview on May 20, 2026. (Video sources: Instagram @mayorbarbaralee; KTVU. Montage by Oakland Report)
Oakland Report examines the data behind the headlines. In this installment, we take a closer look at the data behind mayor Barbara Lee’s claim that crime is down on her watch — and her inference that she deserves the credit.
“Crime rates are coming down in all categories”
Marking one year in office in May, mayor Barbara Lee told local television station KTVU that “crime rates are coming down in all categories.”1
That same day, Lee told television station KRON that Oakland’s public safety turnaround has become a model for other cities.
“Oakland is seen as one of the top cities in terms of what we’re doing here so be proud of what we’re doing even though we know we haven’t accomplished everything and we still have crime and we still have fear. But everyone is working on it every day.”
— Mayor Barbara Lee, May 20, 20262
Lee’s claim is supported primarily by the most recent year of crime data: violent crime in Oakland is down more than 20% since Lee took office just over one year ago — consistent with a nationwide trend.
Despite these impressive statistics, Oaklanders continue to experience the highest violent crime rate of any California city — and the second-highest in the nation.
To help our readers understand the larger picture of Oakland’s crime trends, Oakland Report examined where Oakland stands among other cities on crime trends — not over one good year, but over the past 15 years.
Using Department of Justice (DOJ) crime data, we compared Oakland with 12 comparable and neighboring California cities — Alameda, Berkeley, Fremont, Hayward, Long Beach, Richmond, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose, San Leandro, and Santa Clara — and against statewide and national averages, from 2010 through 2025.
We also examined clearance rates, the share of reported crimes police report solving.3
Oakland Report is a citizen-led nonprofit organization. We present the evidence for our readers to decide what to think about it. Subscribe for free to get every analysis in your inbox.
Key findings
Oakland has the highest property crime rate of any large city in America. In the FBI’s most recent national city data (2024), Oakland ranked first among all reporting cities over 100,000 residents.
Oakland’s property crime rate has gone up, not down. Oakland’s property crime rate rose 22% from 2010 to 2025. Meanwhile, California’s property crime rate fell 32% over the same period, and the nation’s fell 40% (through 2024).
Oakland has the highest violent crime rate in California. No city in the state with a meaningful residential population comes close to Oakland’s violent crime rate. Also, Oakland had the second-highest violent crime rate in the nation among cities over 250,000, exceeded only by Memphis.
Oakland’s violent crime rate has remained higher than every other city in California for 16 straight years. Among our 13 comparison cities, Oakland ranked highest in violent crime in all 16 years — and is 3.5 times the statewide rate.
Oakland reports solving a smaller share of its crimes than any major U.S. city for which figures could be found. Its violent crime clearance rate fell from 28% in 2010 to 10% in 2025 — far less than the statewide rate — and its combined clearance rate across all Part I crimes was 2% in 2024. The national average was far higher, around 20%.
Oakland has the highest property crime rate in America
Sitting down with CBS News Bay Area in May to mark her first year as mayor, Lee said she was not overstating the city’s progress.
“Believe you me, I am not looking at this through rose-colored glasses. I mean, we are being tough on enforcement, investigations are being conducted by OPD in a timely way, we have people out preventing crimes … people need to know, we are not missing in action on this. We’re all hands on deck.”
— Mayor Barbara Lee, May 20, 2026.4
“All hands on deck” is a statement deserving a moment’s scrutiny.
The Oakland police department’s operational strength is currently only around 546 active-duty sworn officers — far below its total number of 678 budgeted sworn officers. Only around 618 of those budgeted sworn positions are filled, and of those that are filled, approximately 72 are on various forms of leave or other non-active duty status.5
Crime data offer some insight into the practical effects of Oakland’s chronically understaffed police force.
Oakland has the #1 highest property crime rate in America among cities over 100,000 population, according to the FBI’s most recent national city-level crime data (2024).6
Oakland’s remarkably high rate of crime, even with its recent decline, is not a one-year anomaly.
Oakland’s property crime rate rose 22% from 2010 to 2025. Meanwhile California’s rate fell 32% over the same period — and the national rate fell 40% through 2024.789
In raw counts, Oakland’s reported property crimes increased 34%, compared to only 10% population growth over the same period.1011
Oakland’s property crime rate has gone up, not down
Among the 13 comparison cities, Oakland had the highest property crime rate in 15 of the 16 years we studied (Berkeley’s was highest, back in 2010).
Only neighboring Alameda — population 80,000 — rose faster than Oakland (+31%). San Jose was essentially flat (+3%).
The other ten comparison cities declined, several dramatically: Richmond −54%, Sacramento −47%, San Diego −35%, Riverside −33%.
Meanwhile, California’s property crime rate fell 32% over the same period, and the nation’s fell 40% (through 2024).
Oakland’s property rate has fallen in more recent years — from a peak of 9,155 per 100,000 people in 2023, to 5,402 per 100,000 in 2025, representing a 41% two-year drop.
Whether Oakland retains its title of the #1 highest property crime rate in America — and the #1 highest violent crime rate in California — after the FBI publishes 2025 crime data, likely will depend on how far other high-rate cities fell in the same period.
Oakland has the highest violent crime rate in California — for the 16th straight year
At a January press conference, mayor Lee credited the city’s violence-prevention strategies like the Ceasefire program for the previous year’s decline in violence.
“The results show that when we invest in proven strategies and work together, lives will and can be saved.”
— Mayor Barbara Lee, Jan. 28, 202612
[Editors’ note: Oakland Report will examine the claim that the Ceasefire program reduced violent crime in a future analysis.]
Oakland’s 2025 homicide rate of 12.8 per 100,000 residents was 3.7 times the California statewide rate of 3.5 per 100,000 residents — and about 2.6 times the national rate.
In every year from 2010 through 2025, Oakland’s violent crime rate exceeded that of all 13 California comparison cities we studied — usually by a wide margin.
Oakland’s violent crime rate peaked at 2,387 per 100,000 people in 2023 before falling to 1,525 in 2025 — a substantial decrease, but still far higher than the state and national averages.
Oakland recorded 55 homicides in 2025 by the state’s count — down from 81 in 2024 and 127 in 2021.
The city’s own tally, which uses a broader definition, puts the homicide figure at 67, down 22% from 86 the previous year, with 57 classified as murder.13
Either way, the direction is the same — and the magnitude of the homicide decline is significant and most welcome — when only looking at Oakland in isolation from other cities.
Share this article with people you know.
No city with a meaningful residential population comes close to Oakland’s violent crime rate — the nearest are Compton and Emeryville at roughly 1,200 per 100,000 in 2024, followed by Stockton (about 1,135).14
Nationwide, Oakland’s 2024 violent crime rate ranked #2 among all American cities with populations over 250,000, behind only Memphis, Tennessee.15
Over the full 15-year window, Oakland’s violent crime rate fell 4.9% — a slightly larger decline than the state’s — however, Oakland was starting from a much higher baseline.
The nationwide violent crime rate fell much more — about 11% from 2010 to 2024 — though an FBI definition change in 2013 means the national series is not strictly continuous.
Notably, the median violent crime rate of the 13 California comparison cities rose over the period, from 442 to 502 per 100,000, driven by increases in San Jose (+50%), Alameda (+46%), and Berkeley (+28%), all of which began at much lower starting points.
On the most reliable measure of serious violence, Oakland improved similarly to other cities
The FBI changed its criminal definition of rape in 2013, and California implemented the change in 2014. Aggravated assault counts are sensitive to recording practices. Thus, criminologists often check trends against robbery and homicide, the definitions of which have remained consistent over time.
On that measure, Oakland’s combined robbery-homicide rate fell 46% from 2010 to 2025 — comparable to declines in Sacramento (−47%), San Diego (−53%), Richmond (−56%), Hayward (−54%), and Berkeley (−63%), and steeper than the statewide decline of 39%.
The 55 homicides Oakland recorded in 2025 — down from 81 in 2024 and 127 in 2021 — are its fewest in the DOJ’s historic crime dataset, which extends back to 1985.
It stands to reason that if the “record low” claim applies anywhere in the state, it applies to Oakland’s homicide count — a genuine achievement to celebrate.
However, Oakland started from a homicide level so much higher that even its recent remarkable decline leaves it far above every neighbor.
Additionally, Oakland’s consistently high violent crime rate over 16 years also suggests that Oakland’s struggles to stem crime run deeper and more intractable than in other cities.
No major American city reports solving so few of its crimes as Oakland
A crime is “cleared” when police make an arrest and refer charges, or when an identified suspect cannot be charged for various reasons.
In 2010, Oakland police reported clearing 1,741 violent crimes against 6,267 reported — meaning that 28% of violent crimes were cleared, already well below the statewide 43%.
By 2024, Oakland’s reported data showed a substantial decline in its violent crime clearance rate: only 801 violent crimes cleared against 8,376 reported, or 9.6%.
One year later in 2025, Oakland’s violent crime clearance rate was 9.8% — the lowest clearance rate of the 13 comparison cities — and far lower than the statewide rate of 46%.
The DOJ’s national data show that local police agencies nationwide cleared 43.8% of violent crimes in 2024.
Oakland’s combined clearance rate across all Part I crimes16 was 2.1% in 2024 and 2.2% in 2025, against a national average around 20%.
We could find no major U.S. city with crime clearance rates in Oakland’s remarkably low range — potentially due to Oakland’s struggles with reporting crime data, as explained below.
Oakland’s crime investigations appear to be in triage mode
The overall crime clearance reduction in Oakland is not uniform across specific crime types — and the pattern is telling.
Oakland’s homicide clearance rate (a subset of its violent crime clearance rate) has held up — 51% in 2024 and 62% in 2025, almost exactly matching the national homicide clearance average of 61%.17
What fell in Oakland is essentially everything else: investigations of robberies, aggravated assaults, and, most dramatically, property crimes, where Oakland reported clearing only 481 cases in 2010 (2.8%) and just 17 in all of 2024 (0.05%). That’s one clearance per 1,850 reported property crimes, compared to roughly 1 in 10 statewide.
The data suggests that Oakland’s approach to solving crime is something akin to a medical triage: a department that focuses on resolving its most serious crimes — homicides — while lacking capacity to investigate much else.
Oakland’s property crime clearance data, however, are so low that they cannot be taken entirely at face value.
Numbers this close to zero — reported continuously, month after month — may reflect breakdowns in how clearances are recorded and transmitted as much as investigative outcomes.
This itself suggests a serious problem with Oakland policing that could be at least partly attributed to a severely understaffed police force.
It also could be attributed in part to the city’s poor performance in service delivery overall, as Oakland Report has previously studied.
Read this related article:
Oakland’s crime reporting has documented recent problems: the DOJ notes that Oakland identified inaccuracies in its 2023 statistical submissions after publication and later filed revised data.
The city's information technology department told the council's public safety committee in July 2024 that Oakland’s police records system was vulnerable to outages and relied on an outdated method of transmitting crime statistics to federal authorities; the committee voted to replace it.18
Separately, the city declared a local state of emergency in February 2023 after a ransomware attack took much of its network offline, though officials said at the time that emergency and financial systems were unaffected, and we found no record connecting that attack to Oakland's crime-reporting systems.19
As noted above, Oakland budgeted 678 sworn police officers in FY 2024-25 but had only around 546 sworn officers on active duty as of July 2026.
Nonetheless, Oakland spends more per resident on policing — and less per crime — than any of 14 cities we compared.20
Read this related article:
Methodology
We used the California DOJ’s Crimes & Clearances dataset (June 2026 release, covering 1985–2025), aggregating monthly agency-level records to calendar years for each city’s municipal police department.
Figures therefore exclude crimes reported to other agencies operating within city limits (BART, university, county, and state agencies) — a limitation applied consistently across all 13 cities.
Rates use California Department of Finance E-4 population estimates: the April 1, 2010 census benchmark for 2010, and January 1 estimates otherwise, drawn from the 2011–2020 American Community Survey series and the 2021–2026 series.
Statewide and national rates come from the DOJ’s Crime in California 2024 and 2025 reports and the FBI’s national summary.
National city rankings use the FBI’s 2024 Crime in the United States city tables as compiled by USAFacts and Stateline.
Clearance rates divide clearances reported in a year by crimes reported that year, per DOJ convention; clearances can involve crimes reported in earlier years.
Our statewide computations from the raw dataset reproduce the DOJ’s published 2024 figures exactly (violent clearance 43.6%, property 9.8%), and our city rates reproduce all six 2024 rates cited in our July 1 analysis.
The statewide-highest-violent-rate check covered every municipal agency in the DOJ file for 2024 and 2025.
Correlation is not causation — and other caveats
Oakland’s “#1” property crime rate is based on the most recent national data, which is 2024. The FBI has not yet published 2025 city-level data. Oakland’s property crime rate fell 27% in 2025; whether it retains the top ranking will depend on other cities’ 2025 declines. Several large cities — New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville — did not report to the FBI’s 2024 tables, though none historically approaches Oakland’s rates, and the FBI formally discourages city rankings.
These are reported crimes — not necessarily all crimes. UCR-style data count crimes reported to police, not crimes committed. Victimization surveys consistently find large shares of crime go unreported — and it stands to reason that when a city clears 0.05% of property crimes, residents’ incentive to report declines, which would make Oakland’s property counts an undercount of unknown size. The direction of that bias works against the trend we describe being an artifact of increased reporting.
Crime definitions changed in 2013. The FBI’s 2013 rape redefinition (implemented in California in 2014) raised violent counts everywhere; the 2011 felony-theft threshold change led the DOJ to adjust 2002–2010 property data to include all larceny; and beginning in 2021, DOJ data mix legacy summary reporting with the new CIBRS incident-based system. Our robbery-plus-homicide measure is the check against the first issue.
Oakland’s 2023 data were revised. After the DOJ published its 2023 reports, OPD identified reporting inaccuracies and submitted corrections, which the DOJ applied in its 2025 publication and current dataset — the aggravated assault count, for instance, fell from 11,169 to 5,943. All figures here use the revised data; Oakland’s 2023 remains its worst recent year even after revision.
Some city-years are incomplete. San Jose PD did not report November–December 2023, and Richmond is missing one month of 2015, understating those cities’ counts for those years. The DOJ also cautions that not all agencies submitted a full year of 2025 data; all 13 cities here reported all 12 months of 2025.
Correlation is not causation.
These data cannot tell us whether Oakland’s trends reflect police staffing, enforcement policies, Propositions 47 and 57, pandemic disruptions, violence-intervention programs, economic conditions, or reporting behavior — only what was reported, where, and when.
If this analysis is useful to you, consider donating to support our work.
Other considerations and counterpoints
A fair reading includes the following considerations:
Oakland’s 2024–25 improvement outpaced the state’s in both years, and city and state officials attribute part of the decline to community violence intervention investments — a claim these data can neither confirm nor refute.
Citywide rates also mask enormous neighborhood variation; a citywide average understates conditions in East and West Oakland flatland neighborhoods and overstates them in the hills.
Oakland polices a dense freeway-and-port geography with concentrated poverty that most comparison cities do not share, and it attempts to do so with roughly three-quarters of its budgeted sworn force actually active.
Finally, a clearance is not a conviction — it measures police output, not case outcomes — and rising clearance rates elsewhere partly reflect improved reporting infrastructure, not only better investigation.
Is Oakland succeeding against crime? It depends on how you look at the data.
Addressing fellow Democrats at the party’s summer session in Minnesota in August 2025, Lee made her case that Oakland is succeeding against crime in three numbers.
“Violent crime is down 29%, homicides are down 21%, vehicle thefts are down 45%.”
— Mayor Barbara Lee, Aug. 28, 2025.21
Each of those figures is defensible on its own terms, and the direction they describe is real.
What they leave out is how Oakland compares to everywhere else.
After the best two years in Oakland’s recent record — including a welcome decrease in homicides — its residents in 2025 still experienced violent crime at 3.5 times the state rate, and the nation’s highest big-city property crime rate as of the latest national data.
Oaklanders also experienced a reported 90% chance that a violent crime would go unsolved.
Whether these data support the broader claim that “crime is down” in Oakland, is for the reader to decide for themselves.
BECOME A SUPPORTING MEMBER
Oakland Report is an experiment in a new form of media. We are a citizen-led, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization based in beautiful Oakland, California. If you value our work, please donate. Your contribution in any amount helps us continue to produce articles like this one.
Senior, Andre et al. “One-on-one with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.” KTVU, May 20, 2026. https://www.ktvu.com/video/fmc-gqfz2zkr1rr3q8xk
Hari, Amanda. “Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee reflects on one year in office.” KRON4 News, May 20, 2026. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/oakland-mayor-barbara-lee-reflects-on-one-year-in-office/
California Department of Justice contributors. “Crimes and clearances (with arson) dataset, 1985–2025.” CA DOJ, accessed July 31, 2026. https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data
Castañeda, Carlos. “Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee touts progress on crime and homelessness in CBS News Bay Area interview.” CBS News Bay Area, May 20, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/oakland-mayor-barbara-lee-crime-homelessness-cbs-news-bay-area-interview/
City of Oakland. “Oakland police department reporting template for police commission meeting.” Oakland Police Commission meeting agenda, attachment 4, Jul. 23, 2026. https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/police-commission/agendas/7.23.26.2.opc-regular-meeting-agenda-july-23-2026.fin2.pdf
The FBI cautions against city rankings, and several large cities, including New York, Atlanta, and New Orleans, are absent from the FBI’s 2024 crime tables. However, none of these cities historically approaches Oakland’s property crime rate.
Bonta, Rob et al. “Crime in California 2025.” CA DOJ, Jul. 1, 2026. https://data-openjustice.doj.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/Crime%20In%20CA%202025f.pdf
Bonta, Rob et al. “Crime in California 2024.” CA DOJ, Jul. 1, 2025. https://data-openjustice.doj.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/Crime%20In%20CA%202024%20final.pdf
Federal Bureau of Investigation contributors. “UCR summary of reported crimes in the nation, 2024.” FBI, Aug. 5, 2025. https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/resources/reports/UCR%20Summary%20of%20Reported%20Crimes%20in%20the%20Nation%202024.pdf
California Department of Finance contributors. “E-4 population estimates for cities, counties, and the state, 2021–2026, with 2020 Census benchmark.” CA DOF, May 2026. https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2021-2026-with-2020-census-benchmark/
California Department of Finance contributors. “E-4 population estimates for cities, counties, and the state, 2011–2010, with 2010 and 2020 Census benchmarks.” CA DOF, May 2025. https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/e-4-population-estimates-for-cities-counties-and-the-state-2011-2020-with-2010-and-2020-census-benchmark/
Romero, Rosalyn. “Oakland saw a historic drop in homicides in 2025. City leaders aren’t declaring victory yet.” The Oaklandside, Jan. 7, 2026. https://oaklandside.org/2026/01/07/oakland-homicides-crime-down-public-safety-2025/
Cruz Guevarra, Ericka et al. “Violent crime is down in Oakland.” KQED, Jan. 28, 2026. https://www.kqed.org/news/12071250/violent-crime-is-down-in-oakland
Two industrial California cities with a few hundred residents each — Vernon and City of Industry — produce statistically meaningless rates and were excluded from the data, consistent with standard practice.
USAFacts contributors. "Which cities have the highest and lowest crime rates?" USAFacts, Nov. 25, 2025. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-does-crime-compare-by-city/
Part I crimes are serious offenses tracked by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, consisting of violent crimes like murder and property crimes like burglary. These specific acts are chosen for national tracking because they happen often and people report them.
Watford, Amanda. “Why ‘clearance rates’ don’t tell the whole story about solving crimes.” Stateline, Nov. 24, 2025. https://stateline.org/2025/11/24/why-clearance-rates-dont-tell-the-whole-story-about-solving-crimes/
City of Oakland. "Mark43 RMS upgrade for OPD." Council public safety committee meeting agenda, July 23, 2024. https://oakland.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6721126&GUID=063831BF-F02B-4FF4-B579-95845803DAE1&Options=&Search=
City of Oakland. “Ratify the city administrator’s local emergency proclamation regarding the ransomware.” Special city council meeting agenda, Feb. 14, 2023. https://oakland.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1083264&GUID=956CE0BD-DB8C-4AF7-BC64-2C079F3D192B&Options=info|&Search=
Montana, Alex. “Oakland spends more per resident on police than 13 comparable cities — and less per crime.” Oakland Report, July 1, 2026. https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oakland-police-spending-per-capita-per-crime
Torrez, James. "Barbara Lee has been Oakland's mayor for 100 days." KTVU, Aug. 28, 2025. https://www.ktvu.com/news/barbara-lee-has-been-oaklands-mayor-100-days
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/
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.