Tiburon sees lowest levels of crime in four decades

Editor’s note — This article won first place for best localized national news story and second place for best informational graphics in the National Newspaper Association’s 2024 Better Newspapers Contest.

Tiburon last year recorded the lowest number of crimes in four decades of available data, when rates of the mid 1980s were quadruple what they are today, according to the latest statistics released by the FBI. And Belvedere was even safer.

The municipalities remain among the safest in California and in Marin, with Ross having the lowest overall police-reported crime rate in the county, followed by Belvedere, Fairfax and Tiburon, according to the FBI’s 2022 Crime in the Nation report, released Oct. 16, and California Department of Justice statistics.

Tiburon police Capt. Jarrod Yee credited proactive policing, crime-prevention warnings and license-plate cameras as a deterrent and investigative tool, along with resident vigilance and department responsiveness among the reasons for continued low crime.

“Some agencies are so busy, there are certain types of calls that are not responded to. … We encourage the community to call and report anything suspicious,” he said. “Even if it’s nothing, we would still rather come out and make sure than not respond. Sometimes, a phone call reporting a seemingly trivial issue can result in a felony arrest.”

Belvedere’s chief, Jason Wu, agreed, also citing the city’s vacation home-check program, citizen security-camera registry and Block Captains program.

“Belvedere has one of the most robust Block Captains programs in Marin County,” he said. “Even though it is not a neighborhood-watch program, having neighbors know about their neighbors creates a greater sense of community. In turn, residents are constantly looking out for each other.”

The annual FBI report included data on 11 million offenses across nearly 16,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal and federal law-enforcement jurisdictions, voluntarily reported to the bureau’s 94-year-old Uniform Crime Reporting program. Some 83% of agencies participated in 2022, representing 94% of residents. That’s up from about 52% of agencies representing about 65% of the population last year, when the bureau attempted to move exclusively to its improved national incident-based reporting system. Under the old system, some 95-97% of jurisdictions participated.

Many jurisdictions haven’t yet updated their data-collection systems, including the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, to which Tiburon’s and Belvedere’s reporting are tied. While participation improved in 2022 because the FBI again allowed reporting through both its old and new systems, the bureau has a large national data gap for 2021; however, in California, local agencies also report their statistics to the state each year.

Tiburon’s 72 total police-reported crimes and overall rate of eight per 1,000 residents were the lowest in available local records from the FBI and state, which go back to 1985. Tiburon’s high was 239 crimes in 1986, when the overall crime rate was 34.2 per 1,000 residents, for a 70% drop.

Belvedere’s 15 police-reported crimes — all of which were property crimes — was a rate of 7.18 per 1,000 residents, in line with the all-time lows seen over the past six years, when the city registered its low of 11 crimes three times during that span. The high was 77 total crimes in 1990, a rate of 35.86 per 1,000 residents, or an 81% drop.

Ross’ 6.8 crimes per 1,000 was the county low, and San Rafael’s 35.92 was the high. Those rates compare with 19 crimes per 1,000 in Marin, 28.3 in California and 23.2 in the U.S.

Nationally, that overall crime rate remains near lows dating back to the 1960s. As experts say the national stats should be viewed with caution due to the 2021 data gap, the FBI reported that violent crime dropped 1.7% to pre-pandemic levels, while reported property crimes were up 7.1% from 2021’s low. A separate annual U.S. Department of Justice study released in September — the national criminal victimization survey, a household survey that includes crime not reported to police — found both violent and property crime were up in 2022 from the 2020-2021 lows and similar to the pre-pandemic levels of 2018.

The FBI data and victimization surveys both found violent, property and overall crime rates are well below highs of the mid ’80s to early ’90s, when rates were two and three times higher.

In California, reported violent crime has steadily risen from the 2013 low but is still half the 1992 high. Reported property crime has returned to pre-pandemic levels after the 2020 low, but again the rate remains less than half that of the ’80s and ’90s. Much of the regional crime narrative focuses on Marin’s southern neighbor, San Francisco, where crime is still down 31% from the 1992 high. Violent crime reported to city police returned to pre-pandemic levels but is still 25% below 2013 and 61% below the 1992 high. Property crimes are the driver of increases: Those crimes were up 47% from the 2010 low — but they’re still down 25% from the 1992 high and among the lowest of the past decade, when property crimes first started to rise.

The FBI’s data collection from local agencies almost exclusively focuses on street crimes, with statistical categories including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, as well as arson, burglary, larceny and auto theft.

The police-reported data does not, however, include other major public-safety and quality-of-life crimes, including many white-collar, organized, business or crimes by law enforcement, such as wage theft, tax evasion, insider trading, environmental-pollution crimes, illegal civil-asset forfeitures and crimes committed by and against those inside the penal system. Further, determining which harms are criminalized is often politicized and can change over time, with notable examples being alcohol and marijuana possession and use.

The data also does not account for intentional or unintentional manipulation and misreporting by police, nor victim underreporting. The victimization study in 2022 suggested about 58% of violent crime, including about 75% of rapes and sexual assaults, and 68% of property crime goes unreported. While those rates can fluctuate yearly, they track historically, with similar findings in the 1993, 2002 and 2012 and 2021 studies.

But based on reported data, Belvedere had no violent crimes for the third consecutive year. The high was seven in 1987, when the violent-crime rate was 2.96 per 1,000 residents.

Tiburon’s violent-crime rate was 0.44 per 1,000 residents, reflecting four total violent crimes: two reported rapes and two aggravated assaults. That’s down from seven violent crimes in 2021. The all-time high was 30 in 1993, when the crime rate was 3.83 per 1,000 residents, nearly nine times what it was in 2022.

The national violent-crime rate was 3.9 per 1,000 residents — the lowest since 2014 and about half the rate of the early 1990s — compared with 4.95 in California and 2.32 per 1,000 residents in Marin. Reported violent crime was down 1.7% nationally, with homicide down 6.1%, rape down 5.4% and assault down 1.1%, while robbery was up 1.3%.

Meanwhile, Tiburon had 67 reported property crimes, tying 2021’s low, with 13 home burglaries, five auto thefts and 46 other thefts. The 2022 rate was 7.45 per 1,000 residents, up slightly from last year’s low due to a lower estimated population. Last year’s total property crimes were a 70% drop from the high of 220 in 1986, which included 36 home burglaries, for a rate of 31.5 per 1,000 residents.

All 15 of Belvedere’s reported crimes were property crimes, which included two home burglaries, two vehicle thefts and 11 other thefts, for a rate of 7.18 per 1,000 residents. The low was 5.15 in 2018, but 2022’s total was still down 80% from the 1990 high, where the city saw 76 property crimes for a rate of 35.4 per 1,000 residents.

The national property-crime rate was 19.54 per 1,000 residents, less than half of the early 1990s. The rate was 23.14 per 1,000 residents in California and 16.55 per 1,000 in Marin. Property crimes were up 7.1% nationally, with no change in burglaries but a 7.8% increase in theft and 10.9% increase in vehicle theft.

Notably, the surge in vehicle thefts has been attributed at least in part to the “Kia Challenge,” a social-media trend that shows the ease of stealing Kias and Hyundais that lack theft-prevention systems. Chicago saw thefts increase nearly 800%, while Hyundai Motors was forced to release theft-deterrent systems for some 8 million vehicles and agreed to pay $200 million to customers whose cars were stolen, according to news reports.

Despite a dramatic overall drop in crime since the 1980s and 1990s, and most crimes generally at or near all-time lows, majorities of Americans typically believe crime is increasing nationally and locally every year, according to annual Gallop polls. Republicans and Democrats are more likely to believe crime is up over the prior year depending on who’s president, regardless of actual data. Nationally, violent crime increased just seven times in the 32 years between 1990 and 2022, property crimes three times.

“Social media did not exist in the 1980s/1990s,” said Yee, the Tiburon police captain. “Sometimes crimes that happened were not reported as they are now. This can give the illusion that crime is rising.”

Wu said crime levels continue to be consistently low for 2023, while Yee said the department continues to address home burglaries.

“We continue to encourage residents to do everything they can to protect themselves including leaving lights on, calling the police department for a vacation house watch, utilizing an alarm system and/or security cameras, and leaving a vehicle in the driveway if possible,” he said.

Reach Executive Editor Kevin Hessel at 415-435-2652.