Crime fell in cities across the state during ’08

The vast majority of large cities across California saw declines in both violent and property crimes last year -- though there were several communities that bucked the trend.

Of the 65 cities with more than 100,000 residents, 45 saw drops in violent crime, while 52 cities had fewer property crimes when factoring in population changes in 2008, a Times analysis of FBI preliminary crime statistics for 2008 shows.

Los Angeles saw a 4% drop in violent crime per capita, according to FBI preliminary statistics released Monday for 2008. That decline echoed across the state, with a 3.9% drop per capita in violent crimes, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, compared with 2007. Property crime in L.A. fell slightly.

In San Diego, there was a 5.3% drop in violent crime and a 9.4% drop in property crime.

That was far better than the rest of the nation. The FBI says violent crime nationwide declined by 2.5% last year and property crimes by 1.6%. The western region of the country saw the biggest declines, with a 4.2% drop in property crime and a 3.4% drop in violent crime.

Some suburban cities recorded increases in crime -- though in some cases, the raw numbers remain fairly small.

Costa Mesa saw violent crimes increase nearly 37% -- the most of any big city in the state. But like many of the cities experiencing increases, that was based on a relatively small number of incidents. Huntington Beach was one of the few cities to post increases in both violent and property crimes.

In El Monte, violent crimes last year rose 17.7% over the previous year. In Santa Clarita, the number of violent crimes also climbed 11.2%, and Ventura saw its violent crime jump 9% in 2008. But other suburban cities saw big drops in crime.

Murrieta posted the largest drop in per-capita violent crime in the state last year -- about 30% -- making it the second safest large city in California in terms of violent crime. It also posted the largest decline in property crimes per capita, at 28.3%. In Los Angeles County, Palmdale led the way in 2008 with a 17.6% drop in violent crimes, followed by Pasadena with a 16% decline in 2008.

Irvine remained the safest large city in the state for violent crime per capita, followed by Murrieta, Thousand Oaks, Sunnyvale and Simi Valley in 2008. The most violent city on a per-capita basis remained Oakland, followed by Stockton, Richmond, Sacramento and San Bernardino. L.A. and Long Beach ranked 14th and 15th on the worst per-capita violent crimes, with both seeing a 30-year low in homicides.

FBI officials say nationwide, murder and manslaughter dropped 4.4% in 2008. Aggravated assault declined 3.2%, rape decreased 2.2% and robbery dropped 1.1%.

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richard.winton@latimes.com

doug.smith@latimes.com