Crime
Crime
Watch PRI’s Steve Smith on ABC 7 discussing falling Bay Area crime rates
Watch as PRI’s Steve Smith talks with ABC 7 News’ Cameron Bopp about the latest data showing violent crime rates are falling in the Bay Area and nationally.
Blog
Homicides Fall to Record Lows
During the same period, the number of Black Californians killed by homicide fell from 690 to 372—a reduction of 318 victims, or 46 percent. Among Black men, the demographic group at greatest risk of homicide victimization, the number fell from 613 to 310, a decline of 303 victims, or nearly ...
Blog
California’s Missing Report: Why the State Needs an Annual State of the Criminal Justice System Report
Every year, state agencies, universities, advocacy organizations, and think tanks—including the Pacific Research Institute—publish valuable analyses of crime, courts, corrections, sentencing, policing, and public safety. Those reports shape legislation, influence budgets, and inform public debate. Yet despite this steady stream of research, California continues to revisit many of the same ...
Blog
California Leads the Nation in Attacks on Its Own Communications Networks. Sacramento Should Act Like It.
California likes to lead. On this one, leading is nothing to brag about. New industry data released this summer counted 18,327 nationwide intentional attacks on communications networks, the cables, fiber lines, and towers that keep phones and internet working, in 2025. That’s a whopping 59 percent increase over the prior ...
Blog
From Sarajevo to the World Cup: Why Alliances Still Matter
That transformation also raises an important question as Americans reconsider our nation’s role in the world. In 1984, Sarajevo welcomed the world as host of the Winter Olympics. Back then the city represented a modern, multicultural Yugoslavia and an optimistic future. John Denver was there as part of the US ...
Blog
From the Summer of Love to the Summer of Likes
A few years ago, a flash mob meant gathering in a public place to dance, or engage in some harmless act of collective absurdity. The goal was novelty. The participants sought attention, but not victims. In May, approximately 200 teenagers gathered at The Pike in Long Beach after a meetup ...
Blog
California’s Death Penalty: The Decision No One Wants to Make
After nearly twenty years without an execution, the more pressing question is whether the state is willing to decide what should happen to the 573 – and increasing – number of inmates already sentenced to death. Executions have stopped while death sentences continue to be imposed, and politicians of both ...
Blog
San Francisco’s Recovery—and Its Lessons
A few years ago, I was one of San Francisco’s harshest critics. Writing for the Pacific Research Institute, I documented rising crime, retail theft, open-air drug markets, and a criminal justice philosophy that often seemed more focused on reducing incarceration and prosecution than on protecting public safety. During recalled district ...
Blog
On The David Lucero Case: The Victims Left Behind
When David Lucero went to work one night in June 2013, he wasn’t thinking about criminal justice reform. He was thinking about his son. The single father had picked up a shift as a bouncer outside a Sunnyvale nightclub to help pay for his son’s Pop Warner football fees and ...
Blog
The Search for Police Racism: A Narrative of Data, Oversight, and the Reality of Police Reform in California
In 2020, following nationwide protests after George Floyd’s murder, California began an ambitious experiment: could expansive data collection and new oversight agencies reveal whether policing was systemically racist? Central to this was the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA), passed in 2015 and expanded after 2020. RIPA required law enforcement ...
Watch PRI’s Steve Smith on ABC 7 discussing falling Bay Area crime rates
Watch as PRI’s Steve Smith talks with ABC 7 News’ Cameron Bopp about the latest data showing violent crime rates are falling in the Bay Area and nationally.
Homicides Fall to Record Lows
During the same period, the number of Black Californians killed by homicide fell from 690 to 372—a reduction of 318 victims, or 46 percent. Among Black men, the demographic group at greatest risk of homicide victimization, the number fell from 613 to 310, a decline of 303 victims, or nearly ...
California’s Missing Report: Why the State Needs an Annual State of the Criminal Justice System Report
Every year, state agencies, universities, advocacy organizations, and think tanks—including the Pacific Research Institute—publish valuable analyses of crime, courts, corrections, sentencing, policing, and public safety. Those reports shape legislation, influence budgets, and inform public debate. Yet despite this steady stream of research, California continues to revisit many of the same ...
California Leads the Nation in Attacks on Its Own Communications Networks. Sacramento Should Act Like It.
California likes to lead. On this one, leading is nothing to brag about. New industry data released this summer counted 18,327 nationwide intentional attacks on communications networks, the cables, fiber lines, and towers that keep phones and internet working, in 2025. That’s a whopping 59 percent increase over the prior ...
From Sarajevo to the World Cup: Why Alliances Still Matter
That transformation also raises an important question as Americans reconsider our nation’s role in the world. In 1984, Sarajevo welcomed the world as host of the Winter Olympics. Back then the city represented a modern, multicultural Yugoslavia and an optimistic future. John Denver was there as part of the US ...
From the Summer of Love to the Summer of Likes
A few years ago, a flash mob meant gathering in a public place to dance, or engage in some harmless act of collective absurdity. The goal was novelty. The participants sought attention, but not victims. In May, approximately 200 teenagers gathered at The Pike in Long Beach after a meetup ...
California’s Death Penalty: The Decision No One Wants to Make
After nearly twenty years without an execution, the more pressing question is whether the state is willing to decide what should happen to the 573 – and increasing – number of inmates already sentenced to death. Executions have stopped while death sentences continue to be imposed, and politicians of both ...
San Francisco’s Recovery—and Its Lessons
A few years ago, I was one of San Francisco’s harshest critics. Writing for the Pacific Research Institute, I documented rising crime, retail theft, open-air drug markets, and a criminal justice philosophy that often seemed more focused on reducing incarceration and prosecution than on protecting public safety. During recalled district ...
On The David Lucero Case: The Victims Left Behind
When David Lucero went to work one night in June 2013, he wasn’t thinking about criminal justice reform. He was thinking about his son. The single father had picked up a shift as a bouncer outside a Sunnyvale nightclub to help pay for his son’s Pop Warner football fees and ...
The Search for Police Racism: A Narrative of Data, Oversight, and the Reality of Police Reform in California
In 2020, following nationwide protests after George Floyd’s murder, California began an ambitious experiment: could expansive data collection and new oversight agencies reveal whether policing was systemically racist? Central to this was the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA), passed in 2015 and expanded after 2020. RIPA required law enforcement ...