Safe Neighborhoods Act > Stats and Facts

Between 1999 and 2006, while the national homicide rate declined our state’s murder rate increased – accounting for almost 500 more deaths per year and propelling California from 19th to 10th worst among the states.
Convicted felons and gang members with firearms commit the vast majority of gun crimes, including the killing of peace officers.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department reports that LA County has experienced 5,752 gang related homicides during the last ten years. Between 2004 and 2007, LA county residents reported an average of 166 gang shootings and 252 gang robberies to the Sheriffs Department each month. The 80,000 gang members estimated to reside in the county vastly outnumber the 20,000 police officers and deputy sheriffs who protect the cities and county of Los Angeles.
By comparison, the City of New York with 2 million fewer residents than Los Angeles County is served by almost twice as many peace officers. Chicago, despite a million fewer people than the City of Los Angeles, employs about 50 percent more police officers.
California has seen significant changes in meth production over the past 10 years. It’s no longer a handful of people cooking a little bit of meth for themselves and their friends; now members of California's street gangs and drug-trafficking gangs from Mexico are involved in major meth labs in California’s rural and urban areas.
Between 1999 and 2006, California vehicle thefts increased by more than 40 percent totaling more than Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania combined.
In 2003, the federal government estimated that California prisons held 32,000 illegal alien felons, more than Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania combined. Many of these felons are gang members. Absent this growing and disproportionate burden on California’s penal system the state prison incarceration rate (per 100,000) would fall below the national average. Accurate record keeping would better enable California to seek federal reimbursement for the expense of incarcerating these alien felons
California has opened only one new prison during the past 10 years while 32 counties, many with inadequate jails, are under federal court ordered or locally imposed population caps because of overcrowding. As a consequence offenders in some counties serve 10 percent or less of their sentences.
Increasingly, the alarming growth in I.D theft has been linked by police to meth users and gangs.