Pacoima Crime Rate Trends — Los Angeles
Pacoima is a northeastern San Fernando Valley neighborhood organized around Van Nuys Boulevard and the Hansen Dam recreation area. Anchored by Whiteman Airport, Hansen Dam Park, and the Metrolink Sun Valley/Pacoima area corridor.
Four categories moved in Pacoima this March — two one-month below-trend signals and two sustained structural shifts, all running in the same direction: down across property crime. The shape of the month is broadly deflationary, with no spikes or rare events anywhere in the mix.
Motor vehicle theft is the strongest single signal: the trailing 12-month total sits at 259 incidents against a multi-year baseline mean of 360.15, down 27.0% against the prior year's 355. Burglary also ran below trend this month, and other larceny's decrease is structural — 206 incidents over the current 12 months vs. 282 in the prior year, a 27.0% decline that spans multiple months rather than a single quiet period. Everything else in the tracked categories held within range.
Notable signals 2
Motor Vehicle Theft
The past 12 months saw 259 incidents — about 28% below the 360 average from prior years.
Burglary
The past 12 months saw 80 incidents — about 32% below the 118 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.
- Motor Vehicle Theft has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 259, down 27% from 355 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Other Larceny has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 206, down 27% from 282 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 Pacoima compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month motor vehicle theft 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 motor vehicle theft levels.”
Northridge
252 incidents over the past 12 months — 7 below Pacoima's 259.
Open page →Westchester
266 incidents over the past 12 months — 7 above Pacoima's 259.
Open page →Sun Valley
270 incidents over the past 12 months — 11 above Pacoima's 259.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for Pacoima, 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.