(The Center Square) – California continued its rapid increase in assaults, robberies, car thefts, and shoplifting, with the latest statewide data finding shoplifting increased 39% in 2023.
Violent crimes overall rose from 193,019 in 2022 to 199,838, with most of the increase from jumps in assaults and robberies. Aggravated assaults, or attacks with the “purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury,” jumped from 128,798 in 2022 to 135,046 in 2023. Robberies, which involve the threat or use of force to take property, increased from 47,669 in 2022 to 49,177 in 2023.
Vehicle theft also grew significantly, rising from 181,815 in 2022 to 195,853 in 2023.
The largest increase was in shoplifting, which rose 39%, from 81,955 in 2022 to 113,916 in 2023. Shoplifting reports have increased 78% since 2020, when there were 64,105 shoplifting reports. However, with an average of 96,000 shoplifting reports from 2015 to 2019, 2020 and 2021 shoplifting figures in the 60 thousand range are highly anomalous. Compared to the aforementioned post-Prop. 47 (a 2014 proposition that turned potential felonies into misdemeanors for many crimes) five-year average, shoplifting still remains 19% above historical levels.
At a more local level, there are significant disparities in shoplifting. In San Francisco County, for example, reported shoplifting declined 21% in 2023 compared to 2022, while in Los Angeles County shoplifting increased 62%. In 2022, San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, the hand-picked successor of the county’s former district attorney, George Gascon, who became Los Angeles’ District Attorney in 2020. Boudin’s replacement in the special election, Democrat Brooke Jenkins, ran on a tough-on-crime platform and is up for a full term in November.
Since Gascon — who authored Prop. 47 — became Los Angeles District Attorney, shoplifting has increased 133%. Using that same post-Prop. 47 historical average as before, shoplifting is still up 49% over the average.
Gascon is up for re-election in November, but polls suggest voters are equating his policies of relaxed sentencing and reduced prosecution with increases in crime. Internal polling from Gascon’s opponent, former Assistant U.S. Attorney General Nathan Hochman, has him up two-to-one over Gascon, with one quarter of voters still undecided.
“The escalating criminal activity we’ve been seeing, hearing and feeling is supported by the numbers,” said Hochman in a statement to The Center Square. “When you stop prosecuting certain crimes, criminals benefit, crime increases, and the public suffers.”
California voters also will be able to vote on Proposition 36 in November, which would reform the state’s reduced prosecution of drug dealing and theft to more strongly prosecute serial criminals. It also would create a “treatment-mandated felony” crime class that allows individuals to get treatment for mental health or behavioral issues and receive shelter instead of going to prison.