Canoga Park Crime Rate Trends — Los Angeles
Canoga Park is a western San Fernando Valley neighborhood organized around Sherman Way and Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Predominantly mid-century single-family homes; bordered by Warner Center to the south and West Hills to the west.
Ten categories moved in Canoga Park this March — four one-month below-trend signals, one above-trend spike, and five sustained shifts pointing to structural change across multiple crime types. The dominant shape is downward: violent crime and vehicle-related theft have both pulled well below prior-year levels, while vandalism is the one clear outlier moving in the opposite direction.
Theft from vehicle and motor vehicle theft both ran below trend this month, consistent with the 12-month picture — theft from vehicle is down 40.1% year-over-year (169 incidents vs. 282), and motor vehicle theft is down 54.8% (113 vs. 250). Vandalism, however, registered the month's only spike: 345 incidents over the trailing 12 months against a baseline of 244, and up 10.9% from the prior year. The five sustained-shift signals indicate these aren't noise — the declines in other larceny (down 54.5%), aggravated assault (down 37.6%), and sexual assault (down 41.9%) have been building across multiple 12-month windows.
Notable signals 5
Vandalism
The past 12 months saw 345 incidents — about 41% above the 244 average from prior years.
Theft from Vehicle
The past 12 months saw 169 incidents — about 52% below the 349 average from prior years.
Motor Vehicle Theft
The past 12 months saw 113 incidents — about 54% below the 247 average from prior years.
Sexual Assault
The past 12 months saw 18 incidents — about 39% below the 30 average from prior years.
Aggravated Assault
The past 12 months saw 116 incidents — about 34% below the 175 average from prior years.
All categories, last 24 months
Each panel: recent monthly count vs. trailing 12-month context. MoM is the most recent month vs. the one before; 12mo YoY compares the trailing year to the year before that.
What's been quietly true for a year
Spikes get attention. Sustained shifts shape policy. These are multi-quarter patterns where the past 12-month total differs meaningfully from the year before — they often precede the baseline resetting.
- Other Larceny has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 281, down 55% from 617 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Motor Vehicle Theft has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 113, down 55% from 250 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Theft from Vehicle has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 169, down 40% from 282 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Aggravated Assault has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 116, down 38% from 186 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
What next month likely looks like
Forecasts trained through March 2026, with a likely range we're 95% confident the actual count will fall inside. Categories with too little recent volume — or violent categories at the neighborhood level — show no forecast and are surfaced through signals above instead. See the methodology page for the gating rules.
Aggravated Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Arson
Below the volume threshold for a reliable forecast — too few incidents in recent months to project from.
Burglary
Homicide
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Motor Vehicle Theft
Other Larceny
Robbery
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Sexual Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Theft from Vehicle
Vandalism
How Canoga Park compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month vandalism volume — a pragmatic v1 of peer matching. Demographic / housing-stock peer matching isn't built yet (we deliberately don't ingest income or race data alongside crime). Volume similarity has the right intuition: “neighborhoods experiencing comparable vandalism levels.”
Sun Valley
343 incidents over the past 12 months — 2 below Canoga Park's 345.
Open page →Valley Glen
331 incidents over the past 12 months — 14 below Canoga Park's 345.
Open page →Sherman Oaks
317 incidents over the past 12 months — 28 below Canoga Park's 345.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for Canoga Park, excluding generic crime taxonomy. Useful as texture — what kinds of specifics show up here that don't show up elsewhere.
Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents in this neighborhood 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.
How we built this page
Data → Anomalies → Forecast → Page
Incident data is pulled from SFPD's open dataset, mapped to 10 NIBRS-aligned categories, and aggregated to neighborhood × category × month. Anomalies are surfaced using strict thresholds (~p < 0.01). Forecasts are Prophet with low-count gating; violent categories at the neighborhood level skip the forecast and show rare-event / streak signals instead.
Spike rule: 12-mo total > baseline mean + 2.5σ AND ≥ 20 incidents AND 6-mo confirms. Drop rule: 12-mo total < baseline mean − 2.5σ AND baseline mean ≥ 20. Rare event: any incident in the last 90 days, no prior comparable in ≥ 5 years.