Community
Sheriff Fryhoff Releases 2025 Crime Statistics
| Nature of Incident: | Sheriff Fryhoff Releases 2025 Crime Statistics | ||
| Date: | February 25, 2026 | ||
| Narrative: | |||
| Sheriff Jim Fryhoff has released the 2025 crime statistics for all areas served by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office (VCSO). Starting with the reporting of the 2024 crime statistics, VCSO transitioned to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). This transition aligned with a federal mandate and reflects our commitment to providing timely and comprehensive statistical data to the community we serve as well as the California and Federal Department of Justice. NIBRS requires data to be reported on over 50 offenses and an additional 10 offenses where only arrests are reported. Historically, crime rates have traditionally only measured crimes against persons and crimes against property. NIBRS added the category of crimes against society. The category is largely driven by proactive self-initiated activity by deputies. Although it is a useful metric, it can skew the overall traditional crime statistics for a jurisdiction depending on how proactive deputies are in making arrests. For this year, VCSO jurisdiction reported 12,844 offenses, compared to 12,336 in 2024, resulting in an overall crime increase of 4% for the areas patrolled by the Sheriff’s Office. This was due to a 23% increase in the crimes against society category. When looking at traditional measures of just crimes against persons and crimes against property, crime was down by -4% (8631 to 8285). In addition to the proactive activity of deputies, it is also important to understand that any proactive activity outside of our jurisdiction that is initiated by Sheriff’s Office deputies is reported for the Sheriff’s unincorporated area. Examples of this activity can be self-initiated narcotic arrests within the cities of Oxnard or Los Angeles. Crimes Against Persons: The 2025 NIBRS data for VCSO reported 2,489 crimes against persons, in comparison to 2,428 in 2024 (2.5% increase). The majority of the victims fell within the assault categories (94% in 2025, 91% in 2024). With a majority of those offenses in the simple assault category (1,695 victims in 2025, 1,681 victims in 2024). The aggravated assault category had the largest increase in the crimes against persons category with a 26% increase over 2024 (451 victims in 2025, 357 victims in 2024). This can be attributed to an increase in domestic violence incidents as well as assaults on officers. VCSO experienced ten victims of homicide during 2025 (11 in 2024), and one justifiable homicide which was the result of an officer involved shooting. This statistic is reported to the Department of Justice (DOJ) but is not listed as a criminal homicide. There were two murder suicides, four vehicular related homicides (with two victims related to a driving under the influence offense). There were four domestic related homicides and out of those one involved mental health and three included drugs and/or alcohol. All but the vehicular related homicides involved known offenders to the victims. There were no gang related homicides for 2025. The NIBRS categories for sex offenses includes: rape, sodomy, sexual assault with object, and fondling. For 2025, most of the victims fell within the fondling (47 or 47%) or rape category (33 or 33%). The sexual offenses category saw a 25% decrease overall, 99 in 2025, compared to 132 in 2024. The all-other reported crimes for the crimes against persons category includes: kidnapping/abduction, statutory rape, and human trafficking. Crimes Against Property: The crimes against property category includes robbery, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, destruction of property, forgery, embezzlement, extortion, fraud, bribery, and stolen property. Of all the crimes reported to the DOJ under NIBRS, this is the largest category for VCSO jurisdiction totaling 5,796 crimes in 2025 and 6,203 in 2024 (-6.5% decrease). In 2025, this category accounted for 45% of VCSO’s reported crime. Larceny accounted for 2,424 (42%) of the reported crimes against property. Most of the thefts were shoplifting incidents (37% or 889 crimes), followed by all other larcenies (34% or 829 crimes), and theft from motor vehicles (17% or 423 crimes). All categories in the larceny area saw a decrease from 2024 numbers, except in the area of all other larceny (829 in 2025, 702 in 2024) and theft of motor vehicle parts or accessories (114 in 2025, 84 in 2024). In previous years, thefts of catalytic converter thefts have been significant, however in 2025 theft from motor vehicles that involved parts or accessories only accounted for 114 crimes (5%) and only 31 of those were catalytic converters. Burglary reports totaled 339 in 2025 (421 in 2024) with 158 (47%) being residential (compared to 171 and 41% in 2024) and 181 (53%) commercial (compared to 250 and 59%). Motor vehicle theft accounted for 210 crimes (4%) and the largest increase for this category was in arson (124%). There were 38 arsons in 2025 and 17 in 2024. Most of the arsons have an arrest (four have suspect descriptions and no arrest), and 40% of them are homeless or transient related with warming fires, reckless fires, or encampment fires. Two other categories that had a large number of reported crimes was destruction of property (1,057 in 2025, 1,191 in 2024) and fraud (1,209 in 2025, 1,314 in 2024). Both of these categories decreased from 2024 totals but accounted for the second and third largest categories in 2025. Crimes Against Society: The crimes against society category includes drug/narcotic violations, drug equipment violations, gambling, pornography offenses, prostitution, weapons violations, and animal cruelty. This category reported 4,559 (35%) of the total crimes that VCSO reported to the DOJ. This was 23% higher than 2024 when there were 3,705 reported incidents in this category. There are four crime categories within this group that saw significant increases: drug/narcotic violations (2,843 in 2025, 2,313 in 2024), drug equipment violations (1,194 in 2025, 977 in 2024), prostitution (61 in 2025, 6 in 2024), and weapons law violations (429 in 2025, and 373 in 2024). The areas with largest increases in this category can be considered proactive enforcement violations (drug/narcotic violations, drug equipment violations) and the increase is seen in the unincorporated areas for the Sheriff’s office. The category of prostitution saw the largest increase (917% or 56 crimes) and includes proactive enforcement from various specialized Sheriff units and taskforces related to violations of solicitation, pimping, and pandering. The 2025 NIBRS dashboard further breaks down crime reporting per jurisdiction. For questions regarding each city’s reported crime, the following people can be contacted: Commander Eric Tennessen - Camarillo Chief of Police (805) 797-7102 Commander Jeremy Paris - Thousand Oaks Chief of Police (805) 797-7105 Captain Nick Odenath - Moorpark Chief of Police (805) 826-4997 Captain Eduardo Malagon - Fillmore Chief of Police (805) 477-7018 Captain Tyler Abbott - Ojai Chief of Police (805) 477-7039 |
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| Prepared by: | Senerey De Los Santos | ||
| News Release Date: | February 25, 2026 | ||
| Media Follow-Up Contact: | Senerey De Los Santos (805) 765-0629 | ||
| Approved by: | [email protected] |
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Address/Location
Ventura County Sheriff's Office
800 S Victoria Ave
Ventura, CA 93003
Contact
Emergency: 9-1-1
Non-emergencies: 805-654-9511