San Jose crime by year: the California DOJ figures
Every California police department reports its crime counts to the state Department of Justice, which publishes them on OpenJustice as Crimes and Clearances. The table shows what the San Jose Police Department reported for the seven years to 2025, the latest year in the file. Rates per 1,000 residents use the Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 population estimate of 990,138 for every year, so treat the earlier rates as approximate.
| Year | Violent crimes | Property crimes | Violent per 1,000 | Property per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 4,559 | 25,164 | 4.6 | 25.4 |
| 2020 | 4,375 | 23,847 | 4.4 | 24.1 |
| 2021 | 4,832 | 22,244 | 4.9 | 22.5 |
| 2022 | 5,046 | 25,363 | 5.1 | 25.6 |
| 2023 | 4,861 | 19,259 | 4.9 | 19.5 |
| 2024 | 5,804 | 24,762 | 5.9 | 25.0 |
| 2025 | 5,017 | 23,596 | 5.1 | 23.8 |
Violent crime in San Jose: 5,017 offenses in 2025
Violent crime covers homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. San Jose reported 5,017 in 2025, down 13.6% from 5,804 in 2024, the highest count in the decade from 2016, but 10.0% above 2019. Most of the rise since 2019 is aggravated assault, which went from 2,517 in 2019 to 3,328 in 2025. Homicides moved the other way: 24 in 2025, the lowest count in that decade. Robberies were 1,106 and reported rapes 559. Reported counts depend on how many victims come forward, so compare single categories over several years rather than one.
Property crime in San Jose: below its 2019 level
Property crime covers burglary, motor vehicle theft and larceny-theft. San Jose reported 23,596 in 2025, down 4.7% from 2024 and 6.2% below 2019, after an unusually low 19,259 in 2023. Larceny-theft, which includes thefts from cars and shoplifting, made up 15,090 of them. Vehicle thefts were 5,155, well below the 8,068 reported in 2017, and burglaries 3,351.
San Jose compared with California and nearby cities
Using the same DOJ file and Census populations, San Jose's 2025 rate was 5.1 violent and 23.8 property crimes per 1,000 residents. California as a whole reported 4.3 violent and 18.0 property crimes per 1,000. Among neighbors, Santa Clara reported 1.8 violent and 26.5 property crimes per 1,000, Sunnyvale 1.9 and 18.8, Milpitas 2.4 and 28.7, and Campbell 3.5 and 24.2. Cities with big shopping centers, hotels and job centers draw many non-residents, which pushes property rates per resident up, so these comparisons describe police workload as much as risk to a household.
How many San Jose crimes are solved
A crime is cleared when police arrest and charge someone, or when they identify a suspect but cannot arrest for a reason outside their control. In 2025 the San Jose Police Department cleared 2,014 violent crimes, 40.1% of those reported, and 1,772 property crimes, 7.5%. In 2024 the figures were 34.4% and 7.5%. A clearance in one year can relate to a crime from an earlier year, so these shares are a guide, not an exact solve rate.
What citywide San Jose figures leave out
The city's own neighborhood map divides San Jose into 297 mapped areas, from Downtown and SOFA and the San Jose State campus to industrial land around Tasman and Zanker, hillside streets in Almaden and Evergreen, and retail areas such as Valley Fair and Westfield Oakridge. A single citywide rate blends them all. It also leaves out several things a buyer or renter may care about:
- The city's GIS maps show that parts of ZIP codes such as 95127 and 95132 lie outside city limits. Crimes in those unincorporated areas are reported by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, not SJPD, and appear under the Sheriff in the DOJ file.
- Campus crimes handled by the San Jose State police appear under CSU San Jose (15 violent and 222 property crimes in 2025).
- Crimes never reported to police do not appear at all.
- Calls for service are not crimes. The city's open data portal lists 262,095 SJPD incidents for 2025, from vehicle stops and alarms to welfare checks, which shows workload, not offenses.
For those reasons California Housing Prices does not rank San Jose neighborhoods by safety. Use the tools below to look at the blocks you are considering, and judge them yourself.
How to check crime near a San Jose address
SJPD's own crime statistics and maps
The San Jose Police Department publishes crime statistics and maps on its website, sjpd.org. Our research tools could not open the site when we checked in October 2026, so visit it directly and look for the most recent monthly or yearly reports and any map of recent incidents near your address.
City of San Jose Open Data: police calls for service
The city's open data portal, data.sanjoseca.gov, posts a Police Calls for Service dataset with one file per year from 2016 to 2026. Each record shows the call type, the date, the final disposition and a block-level address, such as a hundred block of a street. Download the current year, filter for the street you are considering and look at the mix of calls. Remember that one incident can involve several calls, and that a call is not a confirmed crime.
California DOJ OpenJustice
OpenJustice lets you compare San Jose with any other California agency, by year back to 1985, for crimes, clearances and arrests. It is the source of the table above and the best place to check a trend, but it has no street-level detail.
FBI Crime Data Explorer
The FBI's Crime Data Explorer shows what SJPD and other agencies report to the national program. Use it to compare San Jose with large cities in other states, and expect its figures to differ slightly from the state file because of reporting dates and definitions.
Megan's Law search by San Jose ZIP code
The California Department of Justice's Megan's Law site lets you search registered sex offenders by address, ZIP code or city. Read the site's own notes on what the listings include before you draw conclusions.
Your own visit and the neighbors
Walk the street at night and on a weekday afternoon, check lighting and traffic, and ask neighbors or the HOA what they see. For a rental, ask the property manager about building access, parking and package security.
Flood, fire and earthquake risk in San Jose
Flood zones along San Jose creeks
For many San Jose homes, natural hazards cost more than crime. Valley Water, the county flood agency, declared an El Nino emergency on October 20, 2026 and, on October 27, awarded a $125,649,597 contract to restart construction of the Coyote Creek Flood Protection Project. Check an address on FEMA's flood maps; Valley Water's staff will help read them by phone. A flood policy usually takes 30 days to start.
Wildfire and earthquake checks
The city publishes a Wildland Urban Interface map layer, and the CAL FIRE fire hazard severity zone for an address appears in the seller's natural hazard disclosure. Cal OES's MyHazards tool shows flood, fire and earthquake zones in one search. Earthquake cover is sold separately; see the earthquake insurance guide and the wildfire zones guide.
Before you buy or rent in San Jose: a checklist
- Look up the address on SJPD's site and in the city's calls-for-service data for the past year.
- Check whether the address is served by SJPD or the County Sheriff.
- Search the Megan's Law site by ZIP code.
- Check FEMA flood maps, the CAL FIRE zone and MyHazards.
- Visit at different times of day and talk to neighbors.
- Get homeowners, earthquake and, if needed, flood insurance quotes before you remove contingencies.
To compare areas by price, see the San Jose neighborhoods guide and the San Jose ZIP code guide. Statewide comparisons are on our page on crime data for California cities. Moving soon? Our moving to San Jose guide covers the setup steps.