Glendale Crime Rate (2026 Report)

Glendale, California recorded a shoplifting rate of 678.6 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2025 — 2.2 times the California rate of 308.3 — but that figure overstates the risk to people who live in Glendale, because the Glendale Galleria and The Americana at Brand bring in shoppers who do not. Glendale Police Department reported 1,270 shoplifting incidents against a Census Bureau population of 187,160; shoppers from elsewhere add to the incidents at Glendale stores but not to the resident count the rate divides by. This report on the Glendale crime rate covers Glendale, California, in Los Angeles County, not Glendale, Arizona.

Burglary shows a second pattern: homes have outnumbered businesses as burglary targets two years running — 192 residential to 180 non-residential in 2024, then 171 to 142 in 2025 — because commercial burglary has fallen faster than residential burglary since 2021.

Isaac Roberts, Security Specialist, Guardian National Security (PPO #120268)

This report covers 2025 data — the most recent complete year available from the California Department of Justice — measured against U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates for the city of Glendale.

Glendale Crime Rate at a Glance

• Shoplifting: 1,270 incidents, 678.6 per 100,000 residents — 2.2 times California’s 308.3. Because shoppers from outside the city are not counted as residents, this per-resident rate overstates the risk to Glendale residents by an amount no public source measures.
• Shoplifting is up 102.2 percent since 2021 (628 to 1,270), against 89.5 percent statewide. In 2025 alone it rose 3.8 percent in Glendale while California’s total fell 8.1 percent.
• Homes outnumbered businesses in burglary two years running: 192 residential to 180 non-residential in 2024, and 171 to 142 in 2025, out of 313 burglaries this year.
• The flip came from businesses, not homes: non-residential burglary fell 37.2 percent since 2021 (226 to 142) while residential burglary fell 10.9 percent (192 to 171).
• Vehicle theft fell 36.5 percent since 2021 (493 to 313), a rate of 167.2 per 100,000 against 316.3 statewide.
• Glendale’s violent crime rate is 232.4 per 100,000, 46.3 percent below California’s 433.0; its property crime rate is 1,840.1, 2.6 percent above California’s 1,793.7.
• Glendale police cleared 13.1 percent of burglaries in 2025, against 10.2 percent statewide.
• Population: 187,160 in the city of Glendale (U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025) — down 2.5 percent from 192,000 in 2021.

Every figure on this page comes from the California Department of Justice’s Crimes and Clearances data or the U.S. Census Bureau, and the methodology section explains how to reproduce each one.

Glendale’s Shoplifting Rate Is 2.2 Times California’s

Glendale Police Department recorded 1,270 shoplifting incidents in 2025. Divided by the city’s population of 187,160, that is 678.6 incidents per 100,000 residents, compared with 308.3 for California as a whole, where 121,339 incidents were reported against 39,355,309 residents. Shoplifting is the largest single piece of the Glendale crime rate for property offenses: 36.9 percent of all property offenses, and 45.1 percent of larceny-theft, against a statewide share of 25.7 percent.

The gap is not new. Glendale’s shoplifting rate has run between 1.8 and 2.2 times the state rate in every one of the last five years, and 2025 is the widest of the five.

Shoplifting in Glendale has more than doubled since 2021, rising 102.2 percent from 628 incidents to 1,270, a little faster than the 89.5 percent rise statewide. The two lines parted in 2025. Glendale’s count rose 3.8 percent, from 1,223 to 1,270, while California’s fell 8.1 percent, from 132,076 to 121,339. The statewide side of that comparison is covered in Guardian National Security’s California retail theft statistics report.

Why Glendale’s Shoplifting Rate Overstates the Risk to Glendale Residents

A rate per 100,000 residents divides incidents by the number of people who live in a city. That works when the people affected are mostly residents. Shoplifting happens inside stores, and Glendale’s stores serve more than Glendale. Glendale’s shopping centers include the Glendale Galleria and The Americana at Brand, which describes itself as a destination just a short drive from Downtown Los Angeles.

Shoppers who live in other cities add to store traffic, and to the incidents at those stores, without adding to the resident count. That pushes the per-resident rate up. Neither center publishes where its shoppers live, and no public source does, so this report does not estimate how much of Glendale’s 2.2-times gap is explained by visitors. What the 678.6 figure measures is reported shoplifting at Glendale stores relative to Glendale’s resident population. It does not measure how likely a Glendale resident is to be affected.

Glendale is not the highest of these places. Burbank’s per-resident rate is higher and Pasadena’s and Long Beach’s are lower, but all four cities run above the state rate. For a Glendale retailer the practical reading is that shoplifting is a real and persistent cost of doing business in the city, while for a Glendale resident the rate says much less about personal risk than its size suggests. Guardian National Security’s Long Beach crime statistics report covers the city with the lowest rate among the cities in this table.

Glendale Shoplifting Ran 85 to 120 Incidents in Every Month of 2025

Glendale Police Department reported shoplifting in every month of 2025, and no month departed far from the average. The count ranged from 85 in December to 120 in both January and March, with a monthly average of 105.8 — about 3.5 incidents a day. Every month landed within 20 percent of that average, and the two busiest months were not the holiday months.

The monthly counts describe a year-round condition rather than a seasonal spike. December, the month retailers most often plan around, was the lowest of the year. The data records how many incidents were reported, not which stores they occurred in or why the count moved, so this report draws no conclusion about causes.

Homes Have Outnumbered Businesses in Glendale Burglaries Two Years Running

Of Glendale’s 313 burglaries in 2025, 171 — 54.6 percent — targeted a home and 142 — 45.4 percent — targeted a business. That follows 2024, when residential burglaries also led, 192 to 180 (51.6 percent). It is a second year, not a first: from 2021 through 2023, businesses were the more common target every year. The lead for homes widened from 12 burglaries in 2024 to 29 in 2025.

Homes did not overtake businesses because home burglaries rose. Residential burglary fell 10.9 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 192 to 171. Non-residential burglary fell much further: 37.2 percent since 2021, and 51.2 percent from its 2023 peak of 291. Total burglary is down 25.1 percent since 2021 and 15.9 percent in 2025 alone. The source data records the count, not a reason, so this report does not say why businesses improved faster.

The Glendale crime rate for burglary was 167.2 per 100,000 residents in 2025. California’s published rate is 278.5, though that statewide count includes 14,439 burglaries reported by railroad police agencies — 13.2 percent of the state total. Without those rows the statewide rate is 241.8. Glendale is below either. Statewide context is in Guardian National Security’s California commercial burglary statistics report.

Glendale Homes Are Burglarized More Often at Night, and Most Entries Are Forced

Time of day splits differently by structure type. Of 171 residential burglaries in 2025, 103 — 60.2 percent — were logged as night and 68 — 39.8 percent — as day. Non-residential burglaries were nearly even: 70 night (49.3 percent) and 72 day (50.7 percent). Every Glendale burglary in 2025 carries a recorded time. Torrance shows the opposite residential pattern, with most home burglaries in daytime, as Guardian National Security’s Torrance crime rate report shows.

Entry method is recorded too. 262 of Glendale’s 313 burglaries in 2025 — 83.7 percent — involved forcible entry, and the other 51 were unlawful entries without force. The two categories add up exactly to the burglary total.

Glendale Vehicle Theft Fell by More Than a Third Since 2021

Glendale Police Department recorded 313 vehicle thefts in 2025, down from 493 in 2021 — a 36.5 percent decline — and down 26.2 percent from 424 in 2024. Counts went 493, 413, 491, 424, 313 across the five years, with 2025 the lowest. Glendale’s vehicle theft rate of 167.2 per 100,000 residents is 47.1 percent below California’s 316.3.

Burglary and vehicle theft both came to exactly 313 offenses in Glendale in 2025. The annual file and the monthly file both show 313 for each. Vehicle theft is the one category where Glendale clears fewer cases than the state: 10 of 313 thefts, or 3.2 percent, against 6.6 percent statewide.

Is Glendale, CA Safe? Violent Crime Runs Below the State Rate and Property Crime Slightly Above It

Glendale Police Department reported 435 violent offenses in 2025: 1 homicide, 17 rapes, 148 robberies and 269 aggravated assaults. That is 232.4 per 100,000 residents, 46.3 percent below California’s rate of 433.0. Property crime totaled 3,444 offenses, a rate of 1,840.1 per 100,000, which is 2.6 percent above California’s 1,793.7. Any single Glendale crime rate figure hides that split: the city is safer than the state on violent crime and close to the state average on property crime.

The five-year direction differs from the 2025 snapshot. Violent offenses rose from 221 in 2021 to a peak of 530 in 2024, then fell 17.9 percent in 2025; over the full period they are up 96.8 percent, while California’s violent total fell 7.2 percent. Aggravated assault accounts for most of the increase, from 92 in 2021 to 269 in 2025. Property crime is up 2.9 percent since 2021 but fell 7.7 percent in 2025. The data records counts, not causes.

Glendale Police Clear More Burglaries and Far More Larcenies Than the State Average

Clearance rates measure how often a reported crime ends in an arrest or an exceptional clearance, not a conviction. In 2025 Glendale cleared 13.1 percent of burglaries against 10.2 percent for California, and 34.6 percent of larceny-theft, which includes shoplifting, against 12.6 percent. The state does not publish a shoplifting-specific clearance rate, so how much of Glendale’s larceny clearance comes from shoplifting cannot be said.

The statewide burglary figure of 10.2 percent includes the same railroad police rows noted above, which carried almost no clearances. Without them it is 11.7 percent. Glendale’s 13.1 percent is higher than either.

What the Glendale Crime Rate Means for Retailers and Property Owners

For a Glendale retailer, the finding that matters is scale: shoplifting is 36.9 percent of the city’s property crime, it has run at roughly twice the state rate for five years, and it did not ease in 2025 the way it did statewide. That makes loss prevention the central property-crime question for stores and centers here. Guardian National Security provides shopping center and retail security guards for malls and retail stores, and its guide to planning guard coverage for a retail property walks through how coverage is scoped.

For a Glendale homeowner association or apartment community, the burglary data points somewhere different: homes are now the more common target, and most home burglaries are logged at night. That is the case for reviewing apartment and gated community security guard coverage and after-dark patrol, and for parking areas, parking lot security and vehicle patrol cover the vehicle-theft exposure that remains.

Guardian National Security matches any comparable licensed quote through its price-match guarantee and publishes its rates openly: unarmed guards $25–40 per hour, armed guards $35–65 per hour, and mobile patrol $45–70 per hour. For a coverage plan built around these Glendale patterns, see the company’s Glendale security guard services page. For the wider county picture, the Los Angeles property crime statistics page uses the city’s own incident-level data.

Where These Glendale Crime Statistics Come From

The Glendale crime rate figures on this page come from the California Department of Justice Crimes and Clearances (including Arson), 1985–2025 data, released in July 2026 through OpenJustice. Each year’s Glendale figures are the Glendale Police Department entry in Los Angeles County. Population comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 city and town estimates. Statewide figures add up every reporting agency in the same data, and the statewide shoplifting total, 121,339, and the statewide rate of 308.3 match the figures in Guardian National Security’s California retail theft report.

To reproduce any Glendale number, download the annual data file, keep the Glendale rows for Los Angeles County, and read the offense you want. The monthly data file gives the same Glendale totals when its twelve months are added; they matched exactly for every year from 2021 through 2025, and Glendale reported all twelve months in each of those years. Rates divide each count by the Census population estimate for that year, from the Census city and town file.

These are monthly summary totals reported to the state, not the incident-by-incident records the City of Los Angeles publishes for its own police department. The state’s context document explains that data from 2021 onward combines summary and incident-based reports, presented in the summary format, and that definitions differ between the two. Glendale’s figures are never added to Los Angeles Police Department or county sheriff figures, which are separate reporting agencies.

What This Glendale Crime Rate Report Does Not Claim

This report does not claim a cause for Glendale’s shoplifting rate, for its rise in 2025, for the shift in burglary from businesses to homes, or for the five-year rise in violent crime, because the source data records counts and not reasons. It does not estimate how much of the shoplifting rate comes from shoppers who live outside Glendale, because no public source counts them.

It does not give shoplifting figures for any individual store or shopping center, a shoplifting-specific arrest rate, or a clearance rate for commercial burglary alone, because the state does not publish them. It does not claim that private security guards change any of these figures, since no published dataset measures that for Glendale. All figures are offenses reported to police; crime that is not reported is not counted. Data for Glendale, Arizona is not included.

Glendale Crime Rate: Frequently Asked Questions