Santa Barbara County crime statistics for 2025 show the lowest commercial-burglary share of any Southern California county Guardian National Security has measured, and a pattern found nowhere else in the series: commercial burglaries with a known time happened more often during the day than at night. Law enforcement agencies across Santa Barbara County reported 830 burglaries to the California Department of Justice in 2025, and 448 of them — 54.0 percent — targeted a business rather than a home, below the statewide share and below every other county Guardian National Security has covered in this series.
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 — against U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates.
Santa Barbara County Crime Statistics at a Glance
- 5,897 property offenses were reported across Santa Barbara County in 2025 — a rate of 1,334.0 per 100,000 residents.
- 54.0 percent of burglaries were commercial, not residential — the lowest commercial share of any county in this series, and below California’s statewide share of 62.2 percent.
- Among commercial burglaries with a recorded time, 53.4 percent happened during the day — the only county in this series where day outpaces night.
- Property crime fell 38.8 percent between 2021 and 2025, while violent crime rose 8.5 percent over the same five years.
- Santa Maria, the county’s largest city, reported more property crime than the city of Santa Barbara — 1,956 offenses against 1,433 — and a commercial-burglary share more than 20 points higher.
- Shoplifting’s share of larceny nearly doubled, from 10.2 percent in 2021 to 19.2 percent in 2025.
- Population: 442,065 countywide, 111,390 in Santa Maria, 86,422 in the city of Santa Barbara (U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025).
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.
Santa Barbara County Recorded 5,897 Property Offenses in 2025
Santa Barbara County recorded 5,897 property offenses in 2025 across all thirteen reporting law enforcement agencies in the county. That breaks into 4,255 larcenies, 830 burglaries and 812 vehicle thefts. Against a population of 442,065, the property crime rate was 1,334.0 per 100,000 residents — below the rate reported in Kern County, a difference this page does not attempt to explain beyond the raw counts.
| Category | Offenses | Share of property crime | Rate per 100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Larceny-theft | 4,255 | 72.2% | 962.5 |
| Vehicle theft | 812 | 13.8% | 183.7 |
| Burglary | 830 | 14.1% | 187.8 |
| Total property | 5,897 | 100% | 1,334.0 |
Violent crime is counted separately and is not included in any property figure on this page. Agencies reported 1,873 violent offenses in the county in 2025, of which 937 were cleared.
Santa Barbara County Has the Lowest Commercial-Burglary Share in This Series
Santa Barbara County has the lowest commercial-burglary share of any Southern California county Guardian National Security has measured. Of the 830 burglaries reported across the county in 2025, 448 were non-residential and 382 were residential — a 54.0 to 46.0 split. That is the mildest commercial tilt in the series, and the only one under 55 percent.
California as a whole reported 109,596 burglaries in 2025, of which 68,153 — 62.2 percent — were non-residential. Santa Barbara County’s commercial share sits 8.2 points below that statewide figure, a wider gap than every other county Guardian National Security has measured: Ventura County ran below average too, at 56.2 percent, followed by San Diego County at 58.6 percent, the Inland Empire at 59.4 percent, and Kern County at 60.8 percent — all below the state figure, but none as far below it as Santa Barbara. Orange County runs the opposite direction entirely, above the state average at 64.5 percent — a reminder that this pattern is not uniform across Southern California.
| Area | Total burglary | Non-residential | Residential | Commercial share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Barbara County | 830 | 448 | 382 | 54.0% |
| California | 109,596 | 68,153 | 41,443 | 62.2% |
Santa Maria’s Commercial Burglary Share Runs More Than 20 Points Above the City of Santa Barbara’s
The county’s low commercial-burglary share is not evenly spread across its cities — it masks a sharp split between its two largest ones. Santa Maria, the county’s largest city by population, reported 304 burglaries in 2025, of which 196 were non-residential: 64.5 percent commercial, above both the county and state averages. The city of Santa Barbara reported 147 burglaries, of which only 62 were non-residential — 42.2 percent commercial, meaning most burglaries inside the city named for the county are residential, not commercial.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols the unincorporated areas and contract cities outside both cities, reported an even lower commercial share at 40.4 percent of its 235 burglaries. Santa Maria alone — with 25.2 percent of the county’s population — accounts for 43.8 percent of every commercial burglary reported in Santa Barbara County, a share nearly double its population weight. This page does not claim to know why Santa Maria’s mix skews commercial while the city of Santa Barbara’s and the sheriff’s coverage area skew residential; the source data does not record a reason.
Most Santa Barbara County Commercial Burglaries With a Known Time Happen During the Day
Most Santa Barbara County commercial burglaries with a recorded time happen during the day, not at night — the only county in this series where that is true. Of the 448 non-residential burglaries in 2025, agencies logged 213 as day and 186 as night, leaving 49 with no time recorded. Among the 399 that carry a time, 53.4 percent were day burglaries.
That is the opposite of every other county Guardian National Security has measured: Orange County reported 54.3 percent night, San Diego County 55.0 percent night, the Inland Empire 55.6 percent night, Ventura County 58.8 percent night, and Kern County 66.6 percent night. Santa Barbara County’s 46.6 percent night share is the lowest of the six, and the only one below half. Residential burglary follows the same lean: of 382 residential burglaries, 184 were day and 153 were night, with 45 unrecorded — 54.6 percent of the timed cases happened during the day.
| Time recorded | Burglaries | Share of all commercial | Share of those with a time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day | 213 | 47.5% | 53.4% |
| Night | 186 | 41.5% | 46.6% |
| Not recorded | 49 | 10.9% | — |
The 49 unrecorded cases are 10.9 percent of all commercial burglaries countywide, a smaller unknown share than the Inland Empire’s 31.8 percent but larger than Ventura County’s 0.9 percent in this series. Because most timed commercial burglaries here happen in daylight, the operational case is broader than overnight-only coverage — a factor worth weighing for retail and shopping-center sites that assume risk concentrates after closing.
Santa Barbara County Clears Burglary, Vehicle Theft, Property Crime and Violent Crime Above the State Average
Santa Barbara County clears burglary, vehicle theft, overall property crime and violent crime above the California average, with larceny-theft clearing at essentially the same rate as the state. Agencies in the county cleared 157 of 830 burglaries in 2025 — 18.9 percent, compared with a statewide burglary clearance rate of 10.2 percent.
Vehicle theft cleared at 10.3 percent against California’s 6.6 percent, larceny-theft cleared at 12.4 percent against 12.6 percent statewide — the one category that ran essentially even, not above — and overall property clearance in the county was 13.0 percent against 11.2 percent. Violent crime cleared at 50.0 percent, against California’s 45.9 percent statewide rate.
| Offense | Santa Barbara County | California |
|---|---|---|
| Burglary | 18.9% | 10.2% |
| Vehicle theft | 10.3% | 6.6% |
| Larceny-theft | 12.4% | 12.6% |
| All property | 13.0% | 11.2% |
| Violent | 50.0% | 45.9% |
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. A higher clearance rate does not mean a lower risk of loss before an arrest happens — it describes what occurs after a crime, not prevention.
Property Crime in Santa Barbara County Fell Sharply Since 2021, While Violent Crime Rose
Property crime in Santa Barbara County fell 38.8 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 9,642 offenses to 5,897, and every property category measured here moved the same direction. Burglary fell 53.6 percent, commercial burglary specifically fell 64.3 percent, and vehicle theft fell 54.9 percent over the same five years. Violent crime moved the other way, rising 8.5 percent — a different direction than Kern County, where violent crime fell 11.2 percent over the same period, though the same direction as Ventura County, where it rose 38.1 percent.
Shoplifting moved against the property trend, rising 33.0 percent from 616 offenses in 2021 to 819 in 2025. It now accounts for 19.2 percent of all larceny-theft in the county, nearly double its 10.2 percent share in 2021. A countywide headline of “property crime is falling” is accurate in aggregate and does not describe either violent crime or retail shoplifting specifically.
| Year | Property | Burglary | Commercial burglary | Vehicle theft | Shoplifting | Violent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 9,642 | 1,787 | 1,255 | 1,800 | 616 | 1,726 |
| 2022 | 8,723 | 1,184 | 698 | 1,881 | 590 | 1,714 |
| 2023 | 7,492 | 1,059 | 667 | 1,579 | 647 | 1,830 |
| 2024 | 6,554 | 954 | 613 | 1,022 | 768 | 1,924 |
| 2025 | 5,897 | 830 | 448 | 812 | 819 | 1,873 |
| Change | −38.8% | −53.6% | −64.3% | −54.9% | +33.0% | +8.5% |
The population base grew over this period, from an estimated 437,529 in 2021 to 442,065 in 2025, so the property-crime decline is not an artifact of a shrinking denominator — the rate fell even faster than the raw count. Violent crime’s rise, by contrast, happened against the same growing population, so it is not a population artifact either.
Vehicles Are the Target in 1,780 Santa Barbara County Offenses
Vehicles were the target in 1,780 Santa Barbara County offenses in 2025. That is 812 completed vehicle thefts plus 968 larcenies that targeted a vehicle without taking it — 677 thefts from a vehicle and 291 thefts of vehicle parts or accessories. Vehicle-related larceny alone is 22.7 percent of all larceny in the county.
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 1,780 total is this page’s arithmetic, stated so it can be checked. Santa Barbara County spans multiple population centers spread along the coast, from Carpinteria to Guadalupe, which is relevant to anyone weighing parking lot coverage or vehicle patrol across a dispersed service area.
Six in Ten Santa Barbara County Burglaries Involve Forcible Entry
Six in ten Santa Barbara County burglaries involve forcible entry — the second-lowest forcible-entry share of any county in this series, behind only San Diego County. Of the 830 burglaries reported across the county in 2025, 508 were recorded as forcible entry and 322 as unlawful entry without force. The two categories sum exactly to the burglary total, so every reported burglary falls into one or the other.
At 61.2 percent, Santa Barbara County’s forcible-entry share sits above San Diego County’s 58.5 percent, but below Ventura County’s 62.5 percent, Orange County’s 71.0 percent, Kern County’s 72.1 percent, and the Inland Empire’s 74.7 percent, all reported in this series. CA DOJ records this as a binary classification and does not describe how any individual entry occurred, so this page does not characterize the method further.
What the category does establish is that nearly two in five reported Santa Barbara County burglaries involved no forced entry at all — a larger share than in four of the other five counties measured — which is the basis for door and window lock verification as a standard duty on a Guardian National Security post order, alongside the core guard services a site contracts.
Bicycle Theft Runs Nearly Four Times the California Average in Santa Barbara County
Bicycle theft accounts for a far larger share of larceny in Santa Barbara County than statewide. Of 4,255 larceny-theft offenses in 2025, 586 — 13.8 percent of all larceny — were bicycle thefts, against a statewide bicycle share of 3.6 percent. An unclassified “all other” category is still the single largest subcategory, at 1,532 offenses, 36.0 percent of the total. The nine published subcategories sum exactly to the larceny total, with no residual or unclassified remainder beyond the named “all other” line.
| Subcategory | Offenses | Share of larceny |
|---|---|---|
| “All other larceny” | 1,532 | 36.0% |
| Shoplifting | 819 | 19.2% |
| Theft from a motor vehicle | 677 | 15.9% |
| Bicycles | 586 | 13.8% |
| Theft from a building | 291 | 6.8% |
| Motor vehicle parts and accessories | 291 | 6.8% |
| Pocket-picking | 30 | 0.7% |
| Purse-snatching | 25 | 0.6% |
| Coin-operated machines | 4 | 0.1% |
| Total larceny-theft | 4,255 | 100% |
One agency drives most of the bicycle-theft share: UC Santa Barbara reported 239 larceny offenses countywide in 2025, and 167 of them — 69.9 percent of everything the campus police department reported — were bicycle thefts. UC Santa Barbara alone accounts for 28.5 percent of every bicycle theft reported in Santa Barbara County, which is why the countywide bicycle share runs so far above the state figure. “All other larceny” is CA DOJ’s residual bucket for larceny that does not fit the eight named categories, and the agency does not break it down further, so this page does not speculate about its contents.
Santa Maria Reports More Property Crime Than the City of Santa Barbara
Santa Maria reports more property crime than the city of Santa Barbara, despite the county carrying the latter’s name. The city recorded 1,956 property offenses in 2025 — 33.2 percent of the countywide total — against 1,433 in the city of Santa Barbara and 919 across the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department’s unincorporated and contract-city jurisdictions. Together, Santa Barbara County’s five largest jurisdictions by property-crime volume account for 87.3 percent of the countywide total.
Santa Maria’s property crime rate, 1,756.0 per 100,000 residents, also runs above the city of Santa Barbara’s 1,658.1 and the countywide rate of 1,334.0. Both figures are well above the county rate because rural and unincorporated areas — patrolled by the sheriff and by smaller agencies like Buellton, Solvang and Guadalupe — report far less crime per capita; this page does not compare either city against jurisdictions outside Santa Barbara County.
| Jurisdiction | Property offenses | Burglary | Commercial burglary | Commercial share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Maria | 1,956 | 304 | 196 | 64.5% |
| Santa Barbara city | 1,433 | 147 | 62 | 42.2% |
| SB Co. Sheriff’s Department | 919 | 235 | 95 | 40.4% |
| Lompoc | 457 | 38 | 22 | 57.9% |
| Goleta | 381 | 37 | 25 | 67.6% |
These are the five largest jurisdictions by property-crime volume, not a ranking of danger — a larger jurisdiction reports more of everything. Goleta’s commercial burglary share is the highest of the five at 67.6 percent, despite reporting the fewest total offenses of the top five; the Sheriff’s coverage area is the lowest at 40.4 percent, meaning burglary in the unincorporated county skews far more residential than in any of the four cities listed here.
What the Santa Barbara County Crime Statistics Mean for Property Owners
Three findings in these Santa Barbara County crime statistics change how a commercial site should be covered, and all three run counter to the pattern this page’s siblings reported elsewhere in Southern California. First, the county’s commercial-burglary share is the lowest measured in this series, but that low countywide figure hides a split — Santa Maria’s burglaries skew commercial at 64.5 percent while the city of Santa Barbara’s and the sheriff’s coverage area skew residential. A property in Santa Maria and a property in the city of Santa Barbara face a different burglary mix, even though both sit in the same county.
Second, commercial burglary with a known time skews to day here, not night — the opposite of every other county Guardian National Security has measured. That does not mean nighttime risk is absent; 46.6 percent of timed cases still happened after dark. It means a coverage plan built only around overnight risk, a reasonable assumption in Kern County or the Inland Empire, is a weaker fit here.
Third, the county’s clearance rate — above the state average for burglary, vehicle theft, property crime overall and violent crime — is a fact about what happens after a crime, not a substitute for prevention. An 18.9 percent burglary clearance rate still means more than four out of five burglaries close without an arrest.
Guardian National Security covers Santa Barbara County, including Santa Barbara, Montecito and Carpinteria, and publishes rates openly: unarmed guards $25–40 per hour, armed guards $35–65 per hour, mobile patrol $45–70 per hour, with a price-match guarantee on any comparable licensed quote.
Methodology and Source Notes
The Santa Barbara County 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 the thirteen agencies CA DOJ lists under Santa Barbara County for 2025, then summing the named columns across all of them.
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 the 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 monthly rows for 2025 in the separate by-month file. All twenty-nine tested fields matched exactly for the county total, for Santa Maria, for the city of Santa Barbara, and for the Sheriff’s Department. Internal subtotals also reconcile: residential plus non-residential burglary equals total burglary, the nine larceny subcategories sum to larceny-theft, forcible plus unlawful entry equals total burglary, 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 for the countywide figure, and Vintage 2025 city and town population estimates for the Santa Maria and Santa Barbara city figures.
Limits of this data. These are offenses reported to police; unreported crime is not counted. “Santa Barbara County” here means every agency reporting to CA DOJ with a county of Santa Barbara, which includes the California Highway Patrol, a university police department (UC Santa Barbara), a community college police department (Allan Hancock College) and a railroad police jurisdiction alongside city police departments and the sheriff’s department. Clearance rates are not published split by residential and non-residential, so no commercial clearance rate is claimed. Non-residential burglary time-of-day is unrecorded for 10.9 percent of countywide cases, so the day/night split describes the cases with a recorded time, not the full total.
Santa Barbara County Crime Statistics: Frequently Asked Questions
How much crime is there in Santa Barbara County?
Law enforcement agencies in Santa Barbara County reported 5,897 property offenses and 1,873 violent offenses in 2025. Against a population of 442,065, that is a property crime rate of 1,334.0 per 100,000 residents. The figures come from the California Department of Justice.
Property crime breaks into 4,255 larcenies, 830 burglaries and 812 vehicle thefts. All thirteen reporting agencies in the county are included, from Santa Maria and Santa Barbara city police to the sheriff’s department, UC Santa Barbara, Allan Hancock College police, the California Highway Patrol and a railroad police jurisdiction. These are offenses reported to police under FBI summary reporting definitions, so unreported crime is not counted anywhere in the totals.
Are businesses or homes burglarized more often in Santa Barbara County?
Businesses are burglarized somewhat more often than homes countywide in Santa Barbara County, based on the California Department of Justice’s 2025 data, but the pattern is the mildest in Guardian National Security’s Southern California series. Of 830 burglaries reported across the county that year, 448 were non-residential and 382 were residential — a 54.0 to 46.0 split.
That share runs well below the statewide figure of 62.2 percent, and lower than every other county in this series. It also hides a citywide split: Santa Maria’s burglaries ran 64.5 percent commercial, while the city of Santa Barbara’s ran only 42.2 percent commercial — majority residential.
What time of day do commercial burglaries happen in Santa Barbara County?
Santa Barbara County commercial burglaries skew slightly to daytime among cases where a time was recorded — the only county in Guardian National Security’s series where day outpaces night. Agencies logged 213 non-residential burglaries as day and 186 as night in 2025, so 53.4 percent of the 399 with a recorded time occurred during the day.
A further 49 commercial burglaries, or 10.9 percent of the total, carry no recorded time. Every other county in this series reported a majority-night pattern instead, from 54.3 percent in Orange County up to 66.6 percent in Kern County, which makes Santa Barbara County’s daytime lean a genuine outlier rather than a rounding difference.
How many Santa Barbara County crimes lead to an arrest?
Santa Barbara County clears burglary, vehicle theft, overall property crime and violent crime above the California average, according to the California Department of Justice, with larceny-theft clearing at essentially the same rate as the state. Agencies cleared 157 of 830 burglaries in 2025, a clearance rate of 18.9 percent, compared with 10.2 percent statewide.
Vehicle theft cleared at 10.3 percent against California’s 6.6 percent, larceny-theft at 12.4 percent against 12.6 percent statewide — essentially even rather than above — and overall property clearance at 13.0 percent against 11.2 percent. Violent crime cleared at 50.0 percent, above California’s statewide rate of 45.9 percent.
Is crime rising or falling in Santa Barbara County?
Santa Barbara County property crime is falling sharply while violent crime is rising, a split direction not seen in every county in this series. Total property offenses dropped 38.8 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 9,642 to 5,897, while violent crime rose 8.5 percent over the same five years.
Shoplifting also moved against the property trend, rising 33.0 percent and now accounting for 19.2 percent of all larceny-theft in the county, up from 10.2 percent in 2021. Vehicle theft fell the fastest of any single property category, down 54.9 percent. A countywide summary of falling crime is accurate for property offenses in aggregate and does not describe violent crime or shoplifting specifically.
Which Santa Barbara County jurisdiction has the most property crime?
Santa Maria reports the most property crime of any Santa Barbara County jurisdiction, according to the California Department of Justice, with 1,956 offenses in 2025 — 33.2 percent of the countywide total. The city of Santa Barbara is second, with 1,433, despite the county carrying its name.
Together, Santa Barbara County’s five largest jurisdictions — Santa Maria, Santa Barbara city, the sheriff’s coverage area, Lompoc and Goleta — account for 87.3 percent of countywide property crime. Santa Maria’s commercial burglary share, 64.5 percent, is also the highest of the county’s largest jurisdictions apart from Goleta’s 67.6 percent, well above the sheriff’s coverage area at 40.4 percent.
Where do these Santa Barbara County crime statistics come from?
These Santa Barbara County crime statistics are drawn from the California Department of Justice Crimes and Clearances file covering 1985 through 2025, published through OpenJustice in July 2026. Population denominators come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 population estimates for the county, Santa Maria and the city of Santa Barbara.
Every headline figure was derived twice, once from the annual file and once by summing the monthly rows for 2025 in the separate by-month file. All twenty-nine tested fields matched exactly across the county, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara city and the sheriff’s department. These are UCR summary counts and are not comparable with, and must never be added to, NIBRS incident data published by individual cities.
