Inland Empire Crime Statistics (2026 Report): Latest Riverside & San Bernardino Data

Inland Empire crime statistics for 2025 carry one finding that contradicts how most people picture burglary: businesses, not homes, are the majority target. Law enforcement agencies across Riverside and San Bernardino counties reported 10,603 burglaries to the California Department of Justice in 2025, and 6,302 of them — 59.4 percent — were non-residential. Residential burglary accounted for the other 4,301.

Last updated 17 August 2026 · Isaac Roberts, Security Specialist, Guardian National Security (PPO #120268)

This 2026 report covers 2025 data — the most recent complete official year available from the California Department of Justice.

Inland Empire Crime Statistics at a Glance

• 72,392 property offenses were reported across the two counties in 2025 — a rate of 1,518.0 per 100,000 residents.
• 59.4 percent of burglaries were commercial, not residential. California as a whole ran slightly higher at 62.2 percent.
• Of the commercial burglaries with a recorded time of day, 55.6 percent happened at night.
• 11.1 percent of burglaries were cleared — 1,179 of 10,603. Nearly nine in ten closed without an arrest.
• Shoplifting rose 98.8 percent since 2021, while every other property category fell.
• 11,516 vehicles were stolen, and 13,587 additional thefts targeted vehicles without taking them.
• Combined population: 4,769,007 (Riverside 2,544,916 · San Bernardino 2,224,091).

Every figure on this page comes from the California Department of Justice’s Crimes and Clearances collection or the U.S. Census Bureau, and every one can be re-derived from the raw files linked in the methodology section.

1. The Inland Empire Recorded 72,392 Property Offenses in 2025

The Inland Empire recorded 72,392 property offenses in 2025 across all 70 reporting law enforcement agencies in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. That breaks into 50,273 larcenies, 11,516 vehicle thefts and 10,603 burglaries. Against a combined population of 4,769,007, the property crime rate was 1,518.0 per 100,000 residents.

Violent crime is counted separately and is not included in any property figure on this page. Agencies reported 16,965 violent offenses in the two counties in 2025, of which 8,822 were cleared.

2. Businesses Absorb 59.4 Percent of Inland Empire Burglaries

Businesses absorb the majority of Inland Empire burglaries. Of the 10,603 burglaries reported across Riverside and San Bernardino counties in 2025, 6,302 were non-residential and 4,301 were residential — a 59.4 to 40.6 split. This is the single most useful figure on the page for anyone deciding whether a commercial property needs overnight coverage.

This is not an Inland Empire peculiarity, and it would be wrong to present it as one. California as a whole reported 109,596 burglaries in 2025, of which 68,153 — 62.2 percent — were non-residential. The Inland Empire share sits below the state figure, at 59.4 percent against 62.2 percent. The surprising fact is the commercial majority itself, statewide, not any local excess.

3. Most Commercial Burglaries With a Known Time Happen at Night

Most Inland Empire commercial burglaries with a recorded time happen at night. Of the 6,302 non-residential burglaries in 2025, agencies logged 2,389 as night and 1,908 as day, leaving 2,005 with no time recorded. Among the 4,297 that carry a time, 55.6 percent were night burglaries.

The 2,005 unrecorded cases are 31.8 percent of all commercial burglaries, so the night share is a statement about recorded cases only, not about all 6,302. That distinction matters: a business closed overnight often cannot tell responding officers when entry occurred, which is one plausible reason the unknown category is so large. This page does not claim to know how the unrecorded cases would split.

Residential burglary splits the other way: 1,396 night against 1,563 day, with 1,342 unrecorded. Homes are burgled during the working day; businesses are burgled after it. That is the operational case for overnight coverage at industrial and warehouse sites rather than daytime-only staffing.

4. Only 11.1 Percent of Inland Empire Burglaries Are Cleared

Only 11.1 percent of Inland Empire burglaries are cleared. Agencies in the two counties cleared 1,179 of 10,603 burglaries in 2025, leaving 9,424 closed without an arrest or exceptional clearance. Vehicle theft cleared at 8.4 percent and larceny at 13.5 percent, putting overall property clearance at 12.4 percent.

For comparison, the same dataset puts California’s burglary clearance at 10.2 percent, so Inland Empire agencies clear burglary marginally more often than the state average. Violent crime clears far more often: 8,822 of 16,965 offenses, or 52.0 percent.

The dataset does not split clearances into residential and non-residential, so this page does not report a commercial burglary clearance rate. That figure is not published and is not estimated here.

5. Shoplifting Rose 98.8 Percent While Everything Else Fell

Shoplifting in the Inland Empire rose 98.8 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 7,553 offenses to 15,016. It is the only property category in the two counties that grew over that period. Shoplifting now accounts for 29.9 percent of all larceny-theft in the region, up from 13.9 percent in 2021.

Every other category moved the opposite way. Total property crime fell 18.6 percent, commercial burglary fell 33.3 percent and motor vehicle theft fell 39.6 percent across the same five years. A regional headline of “crime is down” is true in aggregate and wrong for retail operators.

6. Vehicles Are the Target in 25,103 Inland Empire Offenses

Vehicles were the target in 25,103 Inland Empire offenses in 2025. That is 11,516 completed motor vehicle thefts plus 13,587 larcenies that targeted a vehicle without taking it — 9,598 thefts from a vehicle and 3,989 thefts of vehicle parts or accessories. Vehicle-related larceny alone is 27.0 percent of all larceny in the two counties.

These are counted under separate offense headings and are added here only because they describe the same target. They are not combined anywhere in the source data, and the 25,103 total is this page’s arithmetic, stated so it can be checked. Vehicle theft fell 39.6 percent since 2021, the steepest decline of any category measured here — relevant to anyone weighing parking lot coverage or vehicle patrol.

7. Three-Quarters of Inland Empire Burglaries Involve Forcible Entry

Three-quarters of Inland Empire burglaries involve forcible entry. Of the 10,603 burglaries reported across the two counties in 2025, 7,920 were recorded as forcible entry and 2,683 as unlawful entry without force. The two categories sum exactly to the burglary total, so every reported burglary falls into one or the other.

The 25.3 percent entered without force matters as much as the majority that did. CA DOJ records this as a binary classification and does not describe how any individual entry occurred, so this page does not characterize those 2,683 cases further. What the category does establish is that a quarter of Inland Empire burglaries did not require defeating any physical barrier — which is why closing-time verification is a standard duty on a Guardian National Security post order, alongside the core guard services a site contracts.

8. Shoplifting and Vehicle Theft Dominate Inland Empire Larceny

Shoplifting and vehicle-related theft dominate Inland Empire larceny. Of 50,273 larceny-theft offenses in 2025, shoplifting accounted for 15,016 and thefts targeting vehicles for a further 13,587. The nine published subcategories sum exactly to the larceny total, with no residual or unclassified remainder.

“All other larceny” is the largest single line at 30.5 percent, and CA DOJ does not break it down further, so this page does not speculate about its contents. The three named categories that a security program can actually influence — shoplifting, theft from vehicles, and theft from buildings — together account for 29,402 offenses, or 58.5 percent of all Inland Empire larceny.

9. Riverside and San Bernardino Counties Diverge on Burglary

Riverside and San Bernardino counties diverge on burglary composition despite similar totals. Riverside reported 5,133 burglaries with 63.0 percent commercial; San Bernardino reported 5,470 with 56.1 percent commercial. Riverside recorded more property crime overall — 38,488 against 33,904 — while San Bernardino recorded more vehicle theft, 6,224 against 5,292.

10. Railroad Police Agencies Rank Among the Top Commercial Burglary Reporters

Railroad police agencies rank among the Inland Empire’s largest commercial burglary reporters. Union Pacific Railroad’s San Bernardino jurisdiction reported 277 burglaries in 2025 and its Riverside jurisdiction 236 — and in both, 100 percent were non-residential. Nine agencies across the two counties reported an all-commercial burglary profile in 2025; the two Union Pacific jurisdictions are by far the largest, and the other seven reported between one and five burglaries each.

All nine are agencies whose jurisdictions contain little or no housing — two railroad police departments, a district park authority, three school or college districts, a state hospital and one CHP jurisdiction. Their burglary profile reflects what sits inside their boundaries, and this page does not read it as evidence about the wider region. For operators of the site types that do sit in this corridor, we cover them separately in trucking yard security risks and cargo theft along the port corridor.

These are counts of reported offenses, not rates. A larger agency reports more of everything, so this table ranks reporting volume and should not be read as a ranking of which city is most dangerous.

What the Inland Empire Crime Statistics Mean for Property Owners

Three findings in these Inland Empire crime statistics change how a commercial site should be covered. First, the majority of burglary is commercial, so a business owner who benchmarks against residential burglary advice is planning for the wrong threat. Second, commercial burglary with a known time skews to night, while residential skews to day. Third, roughly nine in ten burglaries close without an arrest.

That third figure is the one that matters most commercially. Clearance is what happens after a loss; at 11.1 percent it cannot be the plan. Deterrence and detection at the point of entry are the only controls a property owner actually governs, which is the argument for on-site presence at construction sites and warehouses during the hours the data says entry occurs.

Guardian National Security covers both counties from Riverside and San Bernardino, and publishes rates openly: unarmed guards $25–40 per hour, armed guards $35–65 per hour, with a price-match guarantee on any comparable licensed quote.

Methodology and Source Notes

The Inland Empire crime statistics on this page come from the California Department of Justice Crimes and Clearances (including Arson), 1985–2025 file, published July 2026 through OpenJustice. Figures were produced by filtering that file to rows where Year = 2025 and County is Riverside County or San Bernardino County, then summing the named columns across all 70 reporting agencies.

These are UCR summary counts, not NIBRS incident records. California agencies report monthly offense totals under the FBI’s summary Uniform Crime Reporting definitions. That is a different measure from the incident-level NIBRS data some cities publish, and the two must never be added together or compared directly — which is why the figures here cannot be set against our Los Angeles property crime statistics, which are built from LAPD NIBRS records.

Every figure was derived twice, by different routes. Each headline number was computed from the annual file and then recomputed by summing the twelve monthly rows for 2025 in the separate by-month file. All fifteen matched exactly. Internal subtotals also reconcile: residential plus non-residential burglary equals total burglary, the nine larceny subcategories sum to larceny-theft, and burglary plus vehicle theft plus larceny equals total property crime.

Raw file: Crimes and Clearances 1985–2025 (CSV). Definitions and reporting rules: CA DOJ context document. Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 county population estimates, using the Census Bureau’s 2025 population estimate for each county.

Limits of this data. These are offenses reported to police; unreported crime is not counted. “Inland Empire” here means every agency reporting to CA DOJ with a county of Riverside or San Bernardino, which includes the California Highway Patrol, railroad police, university and school district agencies alongside city and sheriff’s departments. Clearance rates are not published split by residential and non-residential, so no commercial clearance rate is claimed.

Inland Empire Crime Statistics: Frequently Asked Questions