(The Center Square) – Crime is down in California, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who announced new statistics showcasing the impact of the California Highway Patrol’s Crime Suppression Teams.
But policy analysts are cautioning against the state taking too much credit, pointing to the work of local police and prosecutors.
In the meantime, the Governor's Office is citing numbers showing a decline in crime. Since being launched in 2023, CHP’s CST units have made 15,197 arrests, recovered 7,042 stolen vehicles, and seized 656 illegal firearms. Following its initial rollout in San Francisco, the strategy expanded in 2024 to cities such as Oakland, San Bernardino and Bakersfield before scaling to six regions statewide in August 2025. Today, the six regions are the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento Valley, Central Valley, Los Angeles, Inland Empire and San Diego.
Since the statewide expansion, the CST units made 5,949 arrests, recovered 1,192 stolen vehicles, seized 206 firearms and confiscated nearly 1.7 million grams of illegal drugs — including roughly 240 pounds of fentanyl, which state officials estimate represents more than 54 million fatal doses.
"One of the most important things we can do to make Californians safer is ensure our state and local law enforcement agencies have the resources and capacity to work together," Newsom said in a press release.
The Newsom administration linked the crime suppression teams to broader public safety figures showing double-digit declines across major crime categories. Between 2023 and 2025, California recorded drops in homicides (down 18.6%), robberies (down 19.9%), property crime (down 14.3%), motor vehicle theft (down 25.8%), and violent crime (down 10.2%). State data also indicates that California’s homicide rate fell to 3.5 per 100,000, the lowest level since statewide recordkeeping began in 1966. Overall, violent crimes fell from 194,537 in 2023 to 170,397 last year, while homicides dropped from 1,892 to 1,374.
Still, policy analysts suggest the Newsom administration's current rhetoric marks a notable shift from its previous platform and highlights underlying policy contradictions.
"California’s falling crime numbers are very good news, but most of the credit belongs to the police officers, investigators, prosecutors and community partners who produced those results," Steve Smith of the Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute told The Center Square. "It is also worth remembering where California was just a few years ago. During the first half of the Newsom years, violent crime rose sharply, and by 2023, California’s violent-crime rate was still 15% higher than it had been in 2018."
Smith added that the governor's current focus on proactive policing stands in contrast to the state's broader criminal justice reform agenda.
"What is striking today is how much the governor’s language has changed from 2021," Smith said. "He is now celebrating more officers, proactive and intelligence-driven enforcement, thousands of arrests, targeting repeat offenders, recovering stolen cars and taking guns and drugs off the street. Those aren’t the products of California’s criminal-justice reforms. They are being achieved despite many of those policies."
Analysts also caution against relying solely on reported crime figures. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates that, nationally, fewer than half of violent victimizations and only roughly 30% of property victimizations are reported to law enforcement.
Furthermore, while the state celebrates record drug seizures, Smith said that the human toll of substance abuse remains high. San Francisco recorded 810 fatal overdoses in 2023 and more than 600 in subsequent years — more than double its 2018 toll. Experts note that while state teams are seizing illicit drugs, many of the resulting prosecutions rely on federal law enforcement partnerships rather than state statutes.
"California is pulling in two directions," Smith added. "The state retains laws reducing sentences and enhancements and expanding opportunities for early release. At the same time, the RIPA Board and local oversight bodies continue pushing de-policing policies designed to reduce police stops and contacts."
The RIPA Board is the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, a 19-member group established in California by Assembly Bill 953, aka the Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015.
While state leaders point to falling crime rates as a clear win for state-funded law enforcement coordination, Smith said the success demonstrates the effectiveness of traditional policing over statutory reform.
"Before Sacramento takes a victory lap, it should recognize who actually produced these results — and be very careful about making their jobs harder," said Smith.
The Center Square reached out to Newsom’s office and the California Highway Patrol, but did not receive a response by publication time.
“As California’s state police, our responsibilities extend beyond the highways,” said CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee in the governor’s press release. “In collaboration with our allied law enforcement partners, we are actively targeting criminal activity, apprehending dangerous offenders, and enhancing safety in communities across our state.”
