Quality of Life: Public Safety

Public safety indicators reflect whether California is becoming a safer place to live, work and raise a family.  They reflect crime statistics for adults and juveniles, information on the rate of incarceration in the state and the abuse of children.  Please click here for a pdf of the full set of indicators on public safety. 

  • California's crime rate has gone down over the past decade.  Crimes are generally defined as either property crimes, including theft and fraud, or violent crimes, such as murder, rape and assault.  While population growth has meant residents have experienced more incidents of crime, the crime rate, which reflects the amount of crime for every 100,000 persons in the state, has gone down.  When compared to the national average, Californians experience less property crime but the state's violent crime rate is slightly higher than the national average. 
  • California is ranked 22nd in the nation for its property crime rate and 37th in the nation for its violent crime rate.
  • California has made progress in addressing juvenile crime.  The number of juvenile offenses has declined in nine of the past ten years.  The juvenile offense rate, which reflects the number of juveniles arrested while adjusting for population growth, also fell. 
  • Half of all juvenile arrests occur in just five of California's 58 counties.  In 2005, more than 25 percent of all juvenile arrests occurred in Los Angeles County, with 56,000 juvenile arrests.  The counties with the next largest concentrations of juvenile arrests were San Bernardino, San Diego, Orange and Santa Clara, which collectively made up the next 25 percent of all juvenile arrests.
  • One of every 34 adults in California is under the watch of the criminal justice system.  In 2005, California had 168,270 inmates in prison, an average of 81,197 inmates in jail throughout the year, and an additional 459,528 individuals on parole or probation, for a total of 708,995 individuals under supervision by California's state and local criminal justice systems. 
  • California is ranked 35th in the nation for the rate of incarcerating prisoners.  California has the largest number of persons in prison of all the states, but 15 other states have a higher rate of incarceration in prison.
  • Black adults in California are six times more likely to end up in prison than their white counterparts.  Latinos are nearly twice as likely to end up incarcerated as whites.
  • In 2006, more than 108,000 children in California were abused or neglected by a parent or caregiver.  California's child abuse rate has improved over the past ten years, declining from a high of 12.5 per 1,000 children in 1999 to 10.8 per 1,000 children in 2006. 
  • Black and Native American children have higher rates of child abuse than other children.  Some 25 of every 1,000 Black children are abused every year.  Native American children face similar rates.  In contrast, Latino, white, and Asian/Pacific Islander children have lower rates of abuse.