Oakland’s Phony Crime Data

Recently released data reported to the public indicate that since January, crime in Oakland, CA has declined by 33%.  As reported by Rachel Swan and Dan Kopf of the San Francisco Chronicle,  Governor Gavin Newsom cited that data as proof that his dispatch of CHP officers and prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office to crack down on Oakland crime has paid off.  The problem is, according to the Chronicle, those numbers are inaccurate. Law enforcement officials told reporters that there is a significant backlog of crimes reported which need to be verified.  As a result, the initial numbers, which are reported weekly, can be much lower that the actual number of crimes.

“The impact of the backlog can be seen in the crime report published after the week of July 1 through July 7. It tallied 17,969 incidents of what are known as “Part 1” crimes for the year—murders, assaults, robberies, rape, burglary, theft, auto theft and arson. That was an apparent 33% plunge from last year’s count of 26,903 crimes through July 7.  However, the corresponding report, published one year earlier, had different 2023 figures: It logged 24,244 crimes as of July 9. That’s because the count was not yet complete.”

Most crimes in Oakland are reported online, often overwhelming the outdated computer system. Police acknowledge that, due to the backlog, many crimes are simply not reported.

“Year-end tallies for 2023 were closer to accurate, percentage-wise, but were still incorrect due to the undercount of crimes like burglary and theft. Similarly, the year-end report for 2022 showed that overall crime had risen by 7%, though a complete report published a year later documented the actual rise of 20%.

Apart from the weekly reports, the year-end crime data that Oakland submitted to the state Department of Justice several months ago appears to have a major error.

It states that in 2023, aggravated assaults more than tripled compared with 2022—from 3,329 to 11,169—after remaining steady in prior years. No one in the Oakland Police Department could explain the implausible rise. In the city’s year-end crime report, assaults rose from 3,222 in 2022 to 3,531 in 2023.”

For many years the annual U.S. Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports have not included Oakland even though it is one of California’s largest cities. Because reporting to the DOJ is voluntary, it’s possible that city officials simply don’t want to provide evidence of how much crime occurs there.  Or perhaps it is because the data is so unreliable that nobody knows how much crime there actually is.