Crime in Berkeley, California
Major crime in Berkeley is 2.8 times the U.S. rate per resident: 2.0 times for persons crimes and 2.9 times for property crimes. Expected major crimes are about flat from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
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Theft from vehicle stands out most, at 4.4 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Berkeley for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Berkeley
The middle half of Berkeley residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 133 and 289; the typical (median) resident's is 196. The citywide figure (277) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–500.0%
- 50–1006.0%
- 100–20047.3%
- 200–40035.8%
- 400+10.8%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 0.6% in a year; across California it fell 7.4%
Change in expected crimes, with California as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Berkeley against U.S. places with 100,000 to 250,000 residents
9 of the 268 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Berkeley; the middle of the group is 109. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Berkeley has a higher major-crime index than 6 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Albany (2 mi), is 49% below Berkeley's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Berkeley
What are the most common crimes in Berkeley?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are theft from vehicle (about 1,437 a year), other larceny (about 1,431 a year) and shoplifting (about 1,038 a year). Compared with the U.S., theft from vehicle stands out most: 4.4 times the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Berkeley's figures add up its 99 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Berkeley's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 82.5% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 122,820. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Berkeley, California." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ca/berkeley
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Albany2 mi140
- Emeryville2 mi574
- El Cerrito4 mi173
- Piedmont4 mi119
- Orinda5 mi51
- East Richmond Heights6 mi96
- Oakland6 mi361
- Richmond6 mi155