California's comparable FBI window (2014–2024, 10 years) splits: one major offense rate rose while the other fell — the lead series is the larger |endpoint %| move.
Split-window verdict
California's violent crime rate rose 22.1% from 2014 to 2024; its property crime rate fell 19.2%. A single combined label would hide that split, so the evidence below keeps the two series separate.
Latest national comparison
For 2024, the state rate was 476.8 per 100,000 versus 352.0 across the state records in this dataset, a gap of 35.5% above. This is a state-level benchmark, not a neighborhood-safety conclusion.
Full-window endpoints
Violent crime moved from 390.6 to 476.8 per 100,000 (+22.1%). Property crime moved from 2459.0 to 1985.9 (-19.2%). These are endpoint comparisons, not proof that every intervening year followed the same direction.
Peak and trough
The highest observed violent-crime rate was 516.7 in 2023; the lowest was 390.6 in 2014. The latest value lies 68% of the way from that low to that peak, which shows whether the endpoint is close to an extreme or near the middle of the observed range.
Recent direction check
From 2020 to 2024, the violent-crime rate rose 7.9%, compared with +22.1% across the full 2014-2024 window. That difference is why the latest few observations should be read separately from the decade-scale endpoints.
Year-to-year movement
The largest annual change ran from 2020 to 2022: +12.4%. Across the full sequence, 5 year-to-year steps rose by more than 1% and 2 fell by more than 1%. A single sharp step can reflect participation or reporting changes as well as a real change in recorded offenses.
California's property rate fell 14.7% (-341.6 per 100K) from 2023 to 2024 (2327.5 → 1985.9) — the sharpest comparable year-to-year step in this window. The largest move the other way was jumped 8.8% from 2020 to 2022 (2167.1 → 2358.2).
California's property gap vs the US aggregate moved from 2.5% below in 2014 to 16.1% above in 2024 (+18.5 pp).
| Year | Coverage | Population | Property | Rate | YoY | Violent | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Comparable | 39,431,263 | 783,051 | 1985.9 | ↓ 14.7% | 187,992 | 476.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 38,965,193 | 906,925 | 2327.5 | ↓ 1.3% | 201,314 | 516.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 39,029,342 | 920,377 | 2358.2 | - | 193,803 | 496.6 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 39,237,836 | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2020 | Comparable | 39,368,078 | 853,161 | 2167.1 | ↓ 7.3% | 173,908 | 441.7 |
| 2019 | Comparable | 39,512,223 | 923,915 | 2338.3 | ↓ 2.6% | 173,298 | 438.6 |
| 2018 | Comparable | 39,557,045 | 949,839 | 2401.2 | ↓ 4.6% | 176,944 | 447.3 |
| 2017 | Comparable | 39,536,653 | 995,644 | 2518.3 | ↓ 2.1% | 178,573 | 451.7 |
| 2016 | Comparable | 39,250,017 | 1,009,344 | 2571.6 | ↓ 2.4% | 174,736 | 445.2 |
| 2015 | Comparable | 39,144,818 | 1,031,385 | 2634.8 | ↑ 7.1% | 166,691 | 425.8 |
| 2014 | Comparable | 38,802,500 | 954,170 | 2459 | - | 151,562 | 390.6 |
More in California: overview, safest cities, most dangerous, compare. Methodology — FBI UCR / Crime Data Explorer rates per 100,000 for California (2014–2024); Census population where FBI denominators are missing.