Oakland Crime Rate Trends
Data sourced from the Oakland Police Department (OPD) Open Data portal and analyzed by Public Analyst.ai: 35 neighborhoods, 10 incident categories, twelve months of trailing comparison. Browse the rankings, scan the multi-year trends, or open a neighborhood-level breakdown.
Millsmont homicide is the dominant signal this August, up 127% against its multi-year baseline. That single spike stands out sharply in a month where every other notable signal in the top five is a decline. No demoted lead carries over from prior months, so this is a clean read: the category and neighborhood are new to the top position.
Citywide volume is down 17.9% against the prior 12 months, 25,835 incidents against 31,474 in the year before. The mix across 35 neighborhoods is heavily tilted toward declines: 61 below-trend signals and 49 sustained-shift signals, with just one spike in the entire breakdown. Eastlake theft-from-vehicle and Elmhurst robbery both ran well below trend, consistent with the broader direction.
The structural story in Oakland this month is the depth of the citywide decline, now substantial enough that a single Millsmont homicide spike is the lone counter-signal across 111 tracked moves. Whether that spike reflects a short-run cluster or the start of a sustained shift is the question September's data will begin to answer. The broader downward trend holds across nearly every other category and neighborhood in the briefing.
Oakland Crime Frequently Asked Questions
Trailing 12 months vs the prior 12 months, computed from the same NIBRS-aligned categories used everywhere else on the page. Updated each August 2026 briefing.
Is crime in Oakland down?
Yes. Citywide incident volume is 17.9% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 25,835 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 31,474 in the year before, down 5,639 incidents.
Is violent crime in Oakland down?
Yes. Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 22.6% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 3,673 violent incidents in the past year against 4,747 in the prior year. See the by-category section below for the per-bucket breakdown.
Is property crime in Oakland down?
Yes. Burglary, theft from vehicle, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson are down 18.7% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 19,211 property incidents in the past year against 23,642 in the prior year.
What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in Oakland?
- Upper Rockridge — 17.3 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Piedmont Pines — 21.1 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Montclair — 24.3 incidents per 1,000 residents
The three safest neighborhoods in Oakland, ranked by trailing-12-month incidents per 1,000 residents.
Computed as NIBRS-aligned trailing-12-month incident totals divided by the latest ACS 5-year residential population, expressed per 1,000 residents. Restricted to neighborhoods with at least 1,000 residents so park-only and industrial geographies, where visitor populations are not reflected in the residential denominator, are excluded.
Which neighborhood in Oakland saw the biggest crime drop?
Brookfield Village: 32.5% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Brookfield Village logged 786 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,164 the year before.
Which neighborhood in Oakland saw the biggest crime increase?
Rockridge: 7.3% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Rockridge logged 1,228 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,144 the year before.
The denominators behind the numbers
Bay-fronting, hill-stacked city; the I-580 ridge and Highway 13 carve the flatlands from the hills, and major arterials (Telegraph, MacArthur, International) define most neighborhood boundaries.
ACS 2024 5-year estimates, county-level (Alameda County). Includes Oakland plus other Alameda municipalities in the demographic aggregates — county is the smallest official ACS geography matching where Oakland city data lives.
City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.
Mixed-density city: walkable flatlands corridors (Telegraph, College, International) coexist with car-dependent hills neighborhoods. Crime-rate denominators differ sharply between the two.
OPD migrated to NIBRS reporting in 2021; pre-2021 records use a different taxonomy and are excluded from the analysis window. CrimeWatch metadata cites a 90-day post-month processing window, but in practice ~92% of incidents land in the feed within 30 days — the briefing uses a 30-day settle buffer. The most recent reported month may show a small undercount.
Every neighborhood, color-coded
Largest moves this month
| # | Neighborhood | Category | MoM | YoY 12mo | vs baseline | 90-day trend | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Millsmont | Homicide | -33% | +73% | +127% | SPIKE | |
| 02 | Eastlake | Theft from Vehicle | 0% | -38% | -40% | DROP | |
| 03 | Elmhurst | Robbery | -50% | -33% | -43% | DROP | |
| 04 | Grand Lake | Other Larceny | 0% | -32% | -35% | DROP | |
| 05 | San Antonio | Robbery | +33% | -47% | -69% | DROP | |
| 06 | Fruitvale | Robbery | +50% | -51% | -65% | DROP | |
| 07 | Lockwood Gardens | Vandalism | +67% | -14% | -30% | DROP | |
| 08 | Brookfield Village | Robbery | +100% | -59% | -69% | DROP | |
| 09 | Pill Hill | Theft from Vehicle | -100% | -50% | -64% | DROP | |
| 10 | Seminary Park | Vandalism | 0% | -18% | -38% | DROP | |
| 11 | Dimond District | Theft from Vehicle | — | -66% | -63% | DROP | |
| 12 | Clinton | Robbery | -100% | -41% | -51% | DROP |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Millsmont
The past 12 months saw 26 incidents — about 127% above the 11 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · THEFT FROM VEHICLEEastlake
The past 12 months saw 53 incidents — about 40% below the 89 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · ROBBERYElmhurst
The past 12 months saw 131 incidents — about 43% below the 229 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · OTHER LARCENYGrand Lake
The past 12 months saw 139 incidents — about 35% below the 214 average from prior years.
Read briefing →Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents citywide across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
All 35 Oakland neighborhoods
Crime rate trends and August 2026 briefings for every tracked neighborhood. Alphabetical.
- Adams Point crime rate
- Brookfield Village crime rate
- Chinatown crime rate
- Clinton crime rate
- Dimond District crime rate
- Downtown crime rate
- Eastlake crime rate
- Eastmont crime rate
- Elmhurst crime rate
- Financial District crime rate
- Fruitvale crime rate
- Glenview crime rate
- Golden Gate crime rate
- Grand Lake crime rate
- Jack London Square crime rate
- Jingletown crime rate
- Laurel crime rate
- Lockwood Gardens crime rate
- Longfellow crime rate
- Maxwell Park crime rate
- Melrose crime rate
- Millsmont crime rate
- Montclair crime rate
- Oakmore Highlands crime rate
- Piedmont Avenue crime rate
- Piedmont Pines crime rate
- Pill Hill crime rate
- Rockridge crime rate
- San Antonio crime rate
- Seminary Park crime rate
- Temescal crime rate
- Upper Rockridge crime rate
- Uptown crime rate
- West Oakland crime rate
- Westlake crime rate
How We Calculate Oakland Crime Trends
Open about how we define spikes, what we exclude as noise, where the data comes from, and how often the model is wrong.