San Leandro Crime Rates: What's Happening?

(Photo credit: SF Chronicle)

If you live in the Bay Area, you've probably been inundated with hysteria about the local crime rate from catalytic converter thefts to store burglaries. So what's happening in San Leandro? Well, let's dig into the data. https://www.sanleandro.org/449/Crime-Analysis. I looked at the December 2022 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for the most recent data.

Total YTD Crimes for 2022 are almost the same as they were in 2019, within 5% of each other. Thankfully, nearly all of that is property crime and not violent crime (property crime is, coincidentally, 95% of all crime in 2022 and 2019). Still, it's hard to call crime going back to pre-pandemic levels as we continue to transition out of the pandemic anything other than a return to normal. Albeit, a still unsatisfactory normal.

I say unsatisfactory because total YTD arrests have continued to decrease significantly since 2017, when the high was 2,799 compared to 2022's 1,292. It's unclear how or why arrest levels have so starkly dropped given steady crime rates and decreased calls for service levels.

Total YTD calls for service have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 2022 only having 90,514 compared to over 100k in 2019, or approximately 10%. This double-digit difference is somewhat significant considering the Chief's remarks that the department is understaffed. Fewer calls for service would normally allow more time for arrests and less coverage, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

However, looking at total crime rates since 2009, the numbers have stayed within an average of 4,206 and a median of 4,119. The lowest were 2015 at 3,855 and 2021 at 3,889 whereas the highest was 2022 at 4,797 and 2019 at 4,575. Clearly, our overall crime rate is essentially stagnant for the last 10 years. If we go back further though, we see that crime has actually decreased YOY from a high of 6,412 in 1994, with lesser peaks of 6,337 in 1993 and 6,291 in 1995.

An issue with the UCR data remains, of course, what rate crimes are being reported to the police. Unless there is something to support that fewer crimes are being reported now than before, then we can assume a relatively constant rate of 40.9% of violent crimes reported and 32.5% of property crimes reported since at least 2019 (per the BJS via PEW). Even then, over the course of 2009 to the present, the police department's size, budget, equipment, and overall resources have continued to grow exponentially, despite the more recent staffing issues raised by the Chief.

Naturally, this raises another issue that has long been problematic in law enforcement -- "Americans tend to believe crime is up, even when the data shows it is down " (per PEW) and "most of the crimes that are reported are not solved." This matches with reporting from Reuters which had some shocking findings that we should consider here in San Leandro. For instance, the majority of time was spent on officer-initiative traffic violation stops rather than calls for service or reasonable suspicion of a crime. Further, they reiterated findings from 2016 that the effects of the size of a police force on crime is "negative, small, and not statistically significant." The criminologists noted that "[c]hanging policing strategy is likely to have a greater impact on crime than adding more police."

So what does this mean for San Leandro? It means that some crime has gone up since the start of the pandemic when everyone was still stuck inside. It means that yes, we do still have crime and it's a problem we need to deal with. But overall in San Leandro, crime rates continue to go down or stagnate, as it has for the past two decades. And this pattern of perception versus reality is often driven by a number of factors, such as the way that technology (e.g. social media) allows us to be more aware of crime happening anywhere at any time. It's also part of a pattern of partisan political propaganda aimed at undermining innovative policies and attacking grassroots efforts to reimagine public safety that actually protects everyone.

So rather than giving in to fearmongering from conservative hacks trying to hijack our community with the same failed solutions they've tried before. Let's continue to support progressive leaders who have committed to addressing crime at every level and are actually making a difference at building a better San Leandro for everyone.

Take note and take care.