Berkeley police have solved crimes at a lower rate than agencies throughout California, even though the city has typically had a higher per-capita spending rate than the state average on law enforcement, according to a new report.
In 2022, Berkeley police’s clearance rate — the percentage of crimes considered solved by an arrest — was 10%, compared with 13% statewide, according to the report. As recently as 2019, Berkeley’s clearance rate was half the California average.
The study published this week by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice — a San Francisco-based nonprofit “whose mission is to reduce society’s reliance on incarceration as a solution to social problems,” according to its website — found law enforcement agencies statewide are spending more and more, while solving fewer and fewer crimes.
Berkeley police spent more per capita than the state average for most of the period between 2004 and 2022, according to the report. Meanwhile, the department’s solve rate for violent crimes fluctuated over time, but was lower in 2022 than it was 18 years before. Its clearance rate for all Part I crimes was below the state average that entire period, though it has been on the rise.
“Part I” is a term generally used across law enforcement agencies to refer to the most serious offenses, almost all of which are felonies: murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, human trafficking, burglary, larceny, auto theft and arson.
Between 1990 and 2022, statewide clearance rates for Part I violent and property crimes have dropped from 22.3% to 13.2%, a 42% decline, according to author Mike Males. Meanwhile, “per-capita spending on law enforcement rose by 52% in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars” over the same time period, Males wrote.
In Berkeley, per-capita spending hovered above the state average most years, from a low of $582 in 2004 to a high of $709 in 2020, compared with state averages of $545 and $669 the same years, according to the report.
The Berkeley Police Department’s clearance rate for violent offenses oscillated up and down, but also remained below the state average. Berkeley’s rate of property crimes remained well above the state average, and for several years BPD’s clearance rate on them was below the state average. In 2022, though, a combination of declining state clearance rates and improving rates in Berkeley meant the city reversed that trend.
Berkeley police and the Berkeley Police Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the report Friday.
Males called out Alameda County in particular as having the lowest clearance rate of any urban county at just 5.8%, “driven by the Oakland Police Department’s very low clearance rate” of 1.5% for Part 1 offenses in 2022.
Police spending rises across California
Statewide, clearance rates of homicides rose 1% and that of robberies rose 16% since the early 1990s, but clearance rates of rape, aggravated assault, burglary, auto theft and theft and larceny have all dropped, according to the report.
Meanwhile, “California is now more likely to imprison someone arrested by law enforcement,” with imprisonment rates increasing 207% per solved violent or property felony since 1990, Males wrote.
The number of people sent to prison for property crimes overall has declined, a trend that has coincided with laws such as 2014’s Prop 47 that reduce penalties for some kinds of theft. But Males concluded it was “declining clearance rates, not reforms,” that were responsible for reducing those prison admissions.
The number of reported crimes has also dropped 57% since the early 1990s, according to the report.
Males attributes rising spending on law enforcement in part to police unions and advocacy groups, but does not specify whether the hikes in spending are due to salary and benefit increases, police equipment or some combination of those.
“Unfortunately, the state Controller data we used doesn’t break down spending that way,” Males said in response to an email inquiry from Berkeleyside. “However, we do notice that law enforcement’s civilian employees have risen at a faster clip than sworn officers.”
Males said salaries have risen many places to drive recruitment, and that Alameda County made a one-time $800 million payment into law enforcement pensions in 2021, boosting that year’s spending.
