Oakland · July 2026 briefing

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.

Read methodologyUPDATED · AS OF 2026-07
104
tracked signals this month — across spikes, drops, sustained shifts, rare events.
-17.0%
overall city incident volume vs. trailing 12-month avg.
35
neighborhoods covered. Each gets its own page.
10
incident categories tracked, NIBRS-aligned.

Eastlake theft from vehicle fell 38% against its multi-year baseline, the strongest fresh signal in Oakland this month. Millsmont homicide was the prior month's lead, and while that category still registers as the top-ranked signal in the underlying data, the more structurally significant move this briefing is the broad drop in property crime across multiple neighborhoods, with Eastlake the clearest example.

Citywide volume is down 17.0% against the prior 12 months, 26,437 incidents against 31,847 in the year before. The signal mix is heavily skewed toward declines: 57 below-trend signals and 46 sustained-shift signals across 35 neighborhoods, against just one fresh spike. Robbery fell in both Elmhurst and San Antonio, and vandalism ran below trend in Seminary Park, reinforcing the breadth of the downward movement.

This is the first month Eastlake theft from vehicle has topped the rankings, so it is too early to read it as a sustained structural shift. The dominant story across July 2026 is the persistence of broad-based declines, with 104 total signals and only one counter-trend spike. If the robbery and theft-from-vehicle drops hold into August, they will begin to look like a durable pattern rather than a single quiet month.

WHAT TO READ NEXT
Direct answers

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 July 2026 briefing.

Is crime in Oakland down?

Yes. Citywide incident volume is 17.0% lower than the prior 12 months.

Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 26,437 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 31,847 in the year before, down 5,410 incidents.

Is violent crime in Oakland down?

Yes. Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 21.3% combined in the trailing 12 months.

That's 3,768 violent incidents in the past year against 4,786 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 17.8% combined in the trailing 12 months.

That's 19,642 property incidents in the past year against 23,893 in the prior year.

What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in Oakland?

  1. Upper Rockridge17.2 incidents per 1,000 residents
  2. Piedmont Pines20.4 incidents per 1,000 residents
  3. Montclair24.4 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: 34.0% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.

Brookfield Village logged 811 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,228 the year before.

Which neighborhood in Oakland saw the biggest crime increase?

Rockridge: 14.8% more incidents than the prior 12 months.

Rockridge logged 1,288 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,122 the year before.

City profile

The denominators behind the numbers

SOURCES · US CENSUS ACS 2024 · OAKLAND OPEN DATA · OPD
Geography
Land area55.9 mi²
Water area22.1 mi²
CoastlineBay frontage + Estuary
Elevation0–1,761 ft
Police beats57
Neighborhoods35 (analysis units)

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.

Population
434,261
Density~7,769 / mi²
Median age39.0
Households~174K
Avg HH size2.70

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.

Housing
Units~189K
Median rent$2,357
Median home value$1.09M
Vacancy7.9%
Tenure
Renter 57%Owner 43%
Stock
SFH 47%2–4 unit 17%5+ unit 36%
Economy & people
Median HH income$129,367
Poverty rate13.3%
Unemployment6.4%
Bachelor's+49.0%
Foreign-born27.3%
Age distribution
<18 19%18–34 26%35–64 41%65+ 15%

City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.

Built environment
Street miles~825
Parks (acres)~3,200
BART stations8
Walk score73 (very walkable)

Mixed-density city: walkable flatlands corridors (Telegraph, College, International) coexist with car-dependent hills neighborhoods. Crime-rate denominators differ sharply between the two.

Policing context
OPD sworn officers~700
Officers / 10K res.~16
911 calls / yr~600K
Open data lag≈ 30 days (settled)

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.

Interactive map

Every neighborhood, color-coded

CLICK A NEIGHBORHOOD →
Category
Layer
Window
RAW COUNT · 1Y
961,0522,007
Rankings

Largest moves this month

RANKED BY ANOMALY STRENGTH
#NeighborhoodCategoryMoMYoY 12movs baseline90-day trendSignal
01MillsmontHomicide+50%+79%+120%SPIKE
02EastlakeTheft from Vehicle-75%-36%-38%DROP
03ElmhurstRobbery+50%-32%-40%DROP
04San AntonioRobbery+50%-40%-65%DROP
05Seminary ParkVandalism-50%-23%-40%DROP
06FruitvaleRobbery-11%-56%-67%DROP
07Pill HillTheft from Vehicle-100%-53%-64%DROP
08Brookfield VillageRobbery-67%-59%-67%DROP
09Grand LakeOther Larceny-50%-24%-30%DROP
10West OaklandBurglary-64%-30%-45%DROP
11Brookfield VillageMotor Vehicle Theft+69%-29%-55%DROP
12West OaklandRobbery-20%-33%-45%DROP
Showing top 12 of 20 (neighborhood × category) cells with tracked signals.
Multi-year trends

The long arc — eight years of monthly counts

SELECT A CATEGORY ↓
026537910520192020202120222023202420252026monthly12-mo rolling mean
Latest 12mo737
YoY 12mo-6%
5-year change+57%
Window change
Peak (12mo avg)74 · Jan '24
Trough (12mo avg)59 · Apr '26
ALL CATEGORIES · 8-YEAR ARC · 12-MO ROLLING MEAN
2018 ─────────────────── 2026
When does it happen?

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.

HOUR OF DAY · ALL CATEGORIES
08,13716,27512am6am12pm6pm11pm

Hour 0 is mildly inflated by reports without a known time defaulting to midnight — see methodology.

DAY OF WEEK · ALL CATEGORIES
019,23238,464MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
MONTH OF YEAR · ALL CATEGORIES
011,40822,816JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Methodology

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.

# anomaly rule — spike
flag = (z >= 2.5) AND (current_12mo >= 20) AND (current_6mo above sustained band)
where z = (current_12mo − μ_baseline) / σ_baseline
# exclusions (excerpt)
· simple assault (varies by reporting practice)
· drug offenses (reflect policing policy)
· admin records, weapons-possession, fraud
# 2025 backtest (citywide)
7 of 10 categories ≥ 90% coverage. see table →