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%.
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 that can fluctuate based on many factors — including how authorities classify and count certain offenses.
In California, reported hate crime rates are down 3.4% from 2024, but hate crimes involving racial or ethnic bias have increased by 6.2%, according to the 2025 Hate Crime in California report.
Hispanics or Latinos were the target of the biggest increase in racially or ethnically motivated hate crimes, according to the report. The increase in that area was 30.3%, some of which was motivated by hatred toward illegal immigrants. Hate crimes motivated by gender bias also increased by 23.8%.
In a press release, Bonta reiterated his commitment to combating hate in California, and said the data obtained are accessible and critical to stopping such crimes in the state.
“While the overall number of reported hate crime events decreased in 2025, the data makes clear that too many Californians continue to be targeted because of who they are, where they come from, how they worship, who they love, or how they identify,” Bonta said.
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