NEWS RELEASE
DETAILS:
The City of Oxnard participates in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. For five (5) decades, the Oxnard Police Department (OPD) has contributed data under the UCR Program’s traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS). The FBI has since retired the SRS and transitioned to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for data collection. NIBRS represents a substantial shift in how the Oxnard Police Department reports crime.
The Oxnard Police Department began reporting NIBRS-compliant crime data on November 15th, 2022. NIBRS is viewed as a more comprehensive reporting system than the SRS. NIBRS goes much deeper to provide circumstances and context for crimes, providing a more detailed understanding of crime patterns and helping law enforcement make informed decisions about crime prevention and public safety.
Due to the change in reporting standards, comparing crime data collected under NIBRS to prior years’ data collected under SRS is not advisable. Apparent increases in crime are not necessarily attributable to actual increases in crime but may reflect changes in how crime is categorized and reported.
The public should be aware of a few of the crucial differences between the two reporting systems that will affect the overall crime counts compared to prior years:
-
More offenses may be reported per incident. SRS operated under a hierarchy rule in which only the most serious offense in an incident was reported. NIBRS allows for the reporting of multiple offenses within the same incident (up to 10).
-
More types of offenses are collected. SRS data collection was limited to eight (8) index crimes, known as the Part 1 Schedule. NIBRS collects data on an expanded set of 24 index crimes (52 offenses in total) known as the Group A Schedule.
-
More crime categories. SRS categorized crimes as Violent Crimes and Property Crimes. NIBRS collects data on Crimes against Persons, Crimes against Property, and an added third category, Crimes Against Society.
The table below contains UCR crimes reported in 2023 under the NIBRS Group A Schedule:
Violent Crime
There were seven (7) homicides in 2023, two (2) less than the previous year. Oxnard’s 2023 homicide clearance rate was 43%, all of which were cleared by arrests. The supplemental report to this news release lists a more detailed explanation.
Violent crime saw an increase in robberies of 17.2%. Despite the increase, Oxnard’s reported robberies remain 6% lower than the last pre-pandemic year of 2019, which saw a reported 275 crimes.
Additionally, there was an overall decrease of 31.6% in domestic violence-related offenses in 2023 as compared to the previous year. Though domestic violence offenses do not have their own UCR category, we have included Oxnard’s statistics:
Property Crime
When accounting for the reporting differences between NIBRS and SRS, Property crimes saw a 16.2% decrease in Burglary / Breaking and Entering and an 11.9% decrease in Arson. Motor vehicle theft increased by 9.2%, while Larceny / Theft Offenses reduced by 1.1%.
DATE / TIME PREPARED: February 23, 2024, 2 PM