Crime in city down overall in 2024; violent offense spike explained ⋆ The Palm Springs Post

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Crime in Palm Springs showed a mixed picture for 2024, with overall incidents down slightly but some violent offenses appearing to be on the rise due to how the data was prepared.

The total number of reported offenses dropped from 2,330 in 2023 to 2,288 in 2024, according to data collected by the Palm Springs Police Department for the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

While the data showed an uptick in some serious crimes, Palm Springs Police Chief Andy Mills explained that some of the data was “way off.”

“There is a shift between Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) as all police departments did for decades and National Incident Based Reporting (NIBRS),” Mills said. “UCR reported one incident if a person shot at a group of people. Now NIBRS counts each person in the crime data.”

That switch in reporting led to assaults showing a dramatic increase, with reported incidents soaring from 178 to 635. Sex offenses also more than doubled, jumping from 30 to 61 cases.

However, Mills said aggravated assaults (serious incidents that led to injury) actually decreased from 178 to 172, while simple assaults (such as being pushed or punched) rose from 481 to 533.

“There are more examples like that, but the numbers will be different,” he said.

In 2023, the city did not record any homicides, and in 2024 it recorded five. Lt. Mike Villegas said some of the increase in 2024 can be attributed to fatal DUI crashes.

Property crimes in the city were down last year compared to the year before. Burglaries were down from 278 to 179 — a 35% decrease — while larceny theft — the unlawful taking of property — dropped from 1,158 to 1,111.

“This might be related to recent law changes in California,” Villegas said. “Repeat offenders now face felony charges, which could be deterring some of these guys from committing property crimes.”

Motor vehicle thefts declined 20%, from 230 to 217, and arson cases dropped from 15 to nine.

The department said it plans to dig deeper into the data. For example, it hopes to better understand the increases in certain violent crime categories and the reasons behind the decreases in property crimes.

“It may take some time to get year-over-year comparison data,” Mills said, “but the reality is this will be a better system to understand crime and how to reduce it.”