Oakland PD's inaccurate crime reporting leads to questions about what's going on in city

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- In 2023, Oakland PD reported to the California Department of Justice that only 3 percent of their violent crimes resulted in an arrest in 2023. When it came to property crimes, the number was 0.1 percent.

"Their clearance rate was abysmal, now it's practically nothing, they are just not solving crimes," said Mike Males with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.

But that data isn't accurate.

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While Oakland PD's clearance numbers -- meaning crimes solved -- within all Bay Area police departments are among the worst, the data the police department submitted to the California DOJ for 2023 is not accurate due to "an anomaly," according to Oakland PD themselves.

"The 2023 stats are just, they are just off the charts, there's no way that these could be correct, yes, it's the Oakland PD that's the problem here," said Males.

When pressed, they admitted, "The anomaly was due to human error." When asked for the correct numbers, they said "those stats are not available at this time."

Oakland PD has a data problem. They don't seem to even know how many crimes are being committed in the city. The numbers they report publicly are different from what they are reporting to the California Department of Justice. According to the inaccurate stats they reported to the state, violent crimes have more than doubled, aggravated assaults more than tripled, motor vehicle thefts have also more than doubled.

Oakland PD declined ABC7 News' interview request.

The Oakland Police Officers Association also said no to our request for comment.

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Mistake or not, community members say the numbers show that police in Oakland are failing to deter crime.

Tenisch Hollins is with Californians for Safety and Justice, a public safety advocacy group.

"Police have a job to do, so to hear that crimes are not being solved that is concerning but it's familiar. When you talk to people whose cars have been broken into or their property has been stolen you hear that they don't even bother calling the police because they don't think they will show up, the responsibility for them to file a police report is put back on them," said Hollins.

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Lyanne: When people say clearance rates, what are we talking about?
Capt. Ravinder Singh: "So clearance rate, the way we report it to DOJ is through an arrest. Anytime a crime is committed, and we make an arrest related to that case, it's considered clear."

San Francisco and San Jose reported that 28 percent and 35 percent of their violent crimes resulted in an arrest. For property crimes the departments had numbers slightly higher than Oakland's reported clearance rate with 5 percent for San Francisco and 7 percent for San Jose.

San Pablo police, also in the East Bay and with a similar racial breakdown as Oakland, had a much better clearance rate in 2023. 53 percent of all violent crimes there were cleared after someone was arrested and 23 percent of property crimes were solved.

"We have 100 coverage of our city of gunshot detection, we have over 290 situational awareness cameras, and have over 85 license plate readers so all of that with the use of technology, our officers become more effective in solving crime," said Capt. Singh.

Oakland on the other hand, is just now installing the 290 cameras approved on surface streets and 190 will be added on state highways throughout the East Bay.

The Oakland City Council also decided to keep funding its gunshot detection system.

"We want to see policing done effectively and equitably and fairly, not in a way that over penalizes our community, but not doing your job at all is not sufficient either," said Hollins.

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