SAN DIEGO — The Golden State is losing its luster. A troubling new report labels physical and sexual violence in pandemic-era California a statewide “epidemic.” To put it simply, violence is on an alarming rise.
According to the new annual report from the California Study on Violence Experiences across the Lifespan (CalVEX), violence statistics have seen a significant increase since COVID-19 emerged. The report, conducted by scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, reports more than one in six Californians (18%) experienced either physical or sexual violence in just the past year. Meanwhile, one in every 25 Californians experienced intimate partner violence.
Overall, rates of both physical and sexual violence have seen an uptick since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with physical violence nearly doubling among men between 2020-2022. Study authors say demographic disparities in the results may provide further insight into potential contributing factors that could have been exacerbated during the pandemic.
“Californians are experiencing violence at epidemic proportions,” says principal investigator Anita Raj, PhD, professor at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Division of Social Sciences, in a press release. “Current violence prevention efforts are clearly woefully inadequate and often ignore the gendered nature of violence, its intersections with other socioeconomic vulnerabilities and its disproportionate effects on marginalized populations.”
How was violence that wasn’t reported measured?
Violence often happens behind closed doors, and most victims never formally report their experiences. It’s why study authors admit relying on criminal justice data or health records to analyze violence almost always fails to account for the “full picture.” In pursuit of stronger data, CalVEX surveyed a representative sample of adults across California, and then uses those responses to estimate population rates. The dataset used in this latest report was collected in March 2022 from 2,285 adults.
Importantly, the report also describes numerous gender disparities when it comes to experiencing and perpetrating violence. Men are more likely than women to have dealt with physical violence, while women are more likely than men to have experienced various forms of sexual violence. In just the past year, over 1.5 million adults in California have admitted to committing an act of sexual violence. Men were deemed more than two times as likely as women to report committing an act of sexual violence and intimate partner violence.
Moreover, women also deal with more mental health consequences and life disruptions in the wake of violent experiences. Over four in five women (82%) report experiencing anxiety or depression due to physically aggressive, coercive, or forced sexual behavior. Women who have experienced physical violence are also twice as likely as men to miss work, miss school, or change/quit a job.
California violence wave linked to pandemic, economy
The report also notes that both socially and economically vulnerable Californians, such as Latino and Black communities, LGBTQ communities, people with a history of homelessness or incarceration, or people living with a disability, experience more violence than other residents. Experiencing financial distress, like facing eviction or food insecurity, is linked to a two to eight times increased risk of violence.
“Our findings suggest the rising rates of violence are linked to the harsher social climate, economic insecurity, and poorer physical and mental health that many Californians have experienced over the last few years due to the pandemic,” Dr. Raj adds.
The research team recommends new policies be put in place strengthening social and economic safety nets, programs in violence prevention, and mental health services across the state of California. A multi-level approach like that, if performed correctly, could both address the current violence crisis and support post-pandemic rebuilding.
More detailed statistical renderings would provide the means for a deeper more isightful analysis of this issue. To simply leave it at “California” is only scratching the surface.
Without numbers broken down by categories; such as region/neighborhood and demographic qualifiers like age, income, race, educational and income level, religion, repeat offenders and so on and so forth, you really are just making a blanket statement.
The research team issues recommendations after a very superficial “analysis”. This will not alleviate the problem and end up wasting even more taxpayer money.
Do better. Or are you afraid of what you might find and then be cancelled by the elightened class for … revealing the truth?
YEah, this is nonsense, they sampled 2,285 people out of 39,350,000? Don’t even begin to see how that could be considered even slightly accurate with a sample size that’s less then 0.0006 of the Californian population. Also what exactly are they comparing their data to to show an uptick? they have only one other report from 2020.
As usual the comments only go to show that nobody bothered looking at the report before spouting off.
“Don’t even begin to see how that could be considered even slightly accurate with a sample size that’s less then 0.0006 of the Californian population. ”
LOL. Did you not take basic statistics in high school?
You don’t need a sample size that is large to get statistically meaningful results.
You and ignorant people like you are why America is such a spectacular failure.
As a people, you have grown too stupid to govern yourselves.
America is a spectacular failure? lmfao…. go back inside your trailer and wait for the tornado.
You understand that they only sampled one person out of every 17,221 people here in California. There is no way that sample size could ever correlate to any sort of reality, also I only went to the faith grade, so no I didn’t take high school statistics.
Harvard Business Review disagrees with your assessment. https://hbr.org/2016/02/a-refresher-on-statistical-significance
“You don’t need a sample size that is large to get statistically meaningful results.” How you can state the polar opposite of how statistics works with such confidence is disturbing.
Well they voted libral on everything. Ended up with a libral legislator and libral governors galor. Which brings you libral soft on crime prosecutors. Economy and society destroyed as a result of libral policies. The explosion in crime is the end result.
Exactly
Voting Liberal is America’s only hope.
Americans aren’t smart enough to do it. So they will vote for destructive Fascism instead and fail even harder.
The world is laughing.
Yes. The “laughing world” is liberal.
You don’t even know the meaning of Fascism. Both parties, especially the Democrats are guilty. All one has to do is look at the blue states during the pandemic where Democrat legislators virtually shut down small business, yet big corporate stores like Wal-Mart were left alone. Big business in bed with government – That’s Fascism. Voting ‘liberal’ results in higher crime, hostility toward small business, and of course, out of control spending on pet social givaways, inflation. LOL..Smart people won’t buy into the nonsense you’re trying to spew.
If this was true – why are so many people moving out of blue states and into red ones. Actions speak louder than words
If you look at the dictionary Fascism is government controlled capitalism which is the the stated goal of the Democratic Party.
Democrat party not Democratic Party
World laughing? With food & fuel skyrocketing in prices everywhere on the planet. What nation to you reside to laugh it up so? The Great Re Set a laugh a minute or a very real deal unfolding? Sept. 24 is being marked as day to remember.
I mean, you can’t even spell liberal.
I’d link it the Prisons being emptied like it’s described in the Communist Manifesto and the purposeful massive influx of illegal alien’s
Enjoy your liberal utopia shit hole!
Nice, warm weather in California.
Primary destination for America’s homeless.
Is that you Vladimir?
Gee, I wonder what happens when you defund police, stop bail and stop locking up offenders, all because of a skin color. I wonder.
About 30% of crimes are caused by the mentally ill,
Law enforcement isn’t equipped to properly manage these people.
Arresting them and holding them in a jail cell, is costly and doesn’t solve the underlying psychological problem.
There are similar problems with people who are just socially malajusted. Prison time for them just makes their inability to cope in society worse.
The goal of defunding the police is to free up resources to treat the underlying cause of anti-social behaviour that is caused by social maladjustment or mental illness.
Conservatives can’t wrap their head around this, because they have very tiny minds that can’t grasp the underlying problems.
Apes.
Wow. So condescending and intolerant. You must be a California liberal.
Standard type of response from an idiot who believes his intelligent, yet spews nonsense that of course as according to the results we see, solves nothing. A ‘soft on crime’ response touchy feeling answer to a problem that requires harsh treatment of people who commit the crimes.
So, letting the mentally-ill run loose in the streets is better for that person and a functional society? At least in jail they have shelter and food. We used to have mental health facilities (similar to jails) in the US until horrible reports of abuse were broadcast by the media. Then the institutions became unpopular and closed. We really do need to step up to a similar solution we had in the 60’s and 70’s. Trouble is, we need people who care. The people working at those facilities in the 60’s and 70’s did not care.
And since you are attacking different political parties, what is the reason for the rise in bums across the country since Obama? Check out the exponential growth in 2012 in New York. Left over Occupy protestors? Tea party members who lost their homes? All of the homeless camps should be called Obamavilles giving credit where credit is due. NPR actually “disected” an advertisement in 2012 about Obamavilles. Fast forward 10 years and what do you have?
Sources? You are not even close to the truth. The vast numbers of offenders are non white, that escapes your comments. And you go after the right/red party? BOTH are puppet shows.
What a terrible state. Hoping and praying relatives give it up and move out. Areas with soros funded prosecutors need avoided.
Compared to the rest of America, California sits roughly in the middle of the pack.
Florida and the Backward southern states are much worse.
Coming from someone who has not lived in FL, right? I live here and it is great. Moved from California and coulnd’t be happier!
I love Florida. It is a shame that you only come to visit, then leave. Well, no it’s not.
California deserves you.
Gets causes totally wrong. soft on crime DA And soft on crime laws are the reason Crime and violence are up. Letting violent people out of prison because of the “pandemic“ also contributed.
Not the pandemic itself , not UFO sightings, not housing prices or any other nonsense.
Yup. State passed prop 47, prop 57, effectively abolishes felony murder, increases time credits and decreases the standards for parole. Those don’t have any effect, you see, on crime. What the state needs to do is spend more on counseling and drug rehab.
America has over 2 million of it’s population in it’s prison system.
That is a higher percentage than Russia ever had in it’s prison system.
How many more millions of people do you intend to imprison?
What makes America such a socially destructive, failed state?
Is it because you don’t have 4 million of your citizens in prison? 10 million?
The size of America’s prison population hints to why America is a failed nation.
Americans aren’t smart enough to figure it out.
We’re not doing it right. Rather than soft cozy prisons, we should create work camps where criminals serve they’re time in labor. Create work farms where they can grow crops and raise animals for sale and pay for their keep. Quit being soft. Give violent offenders the death penalty without long, drawn out appeals. 3 months maximum from offense to execution. Liberals are way too soft to govern, and whatever good intentions they may have, result in utter failure.
How many Russian people starved? I seem to recall about 20 million. That’s not great human relations win buddy.
Wait! How in the hell did they perform this survey? They can’t even define what a woman is. So how then were they able to compile these stats? I am calling BS!
No, Scott. You can’t figure out what a woman is.
The rest of us don’t have a problem. It’s all you.
Caused by Climate Change , Trump and the Russians . The Science IS SETTLED ! ! !
When the state turns its back on God it is sewing the wind.
Sowing.
Your God is dead. Killed by science and reason.
This is such a shallow and boring argument. Science, by its very definition, does not encompass that which is not repeatably observable by man-made instrumentation. To believe that the human experience is fully defined by that which is repeatably observable by instrumentation is so patently misguided that I have to conclude the people who spout it, like yourself, are either trolls or borderline retarded.
“Science” is now Lysenkoism.
The pandemic can be blamed for lots of things, but not this increase in crime – anyone here with any sense understands that the decades-long reduction of consequences for those committing crimes has led, inevitably, to more crime, and increased “serious” crime. California, Oregon and Washington are all terrific examples of “soft on crime.”
Punishment doesn’t stop crime, just as nets don’t stop people from falling.
America has more than 2 million people in it’s prison system.
How many more millions do you propose be imprisoned?
Another 2 million?
Another 4 million?
Your justice system is a failure, in part because you are incapable of undestanding why crimes are comitted.
Americans are willfully ignorant.
LOL..It’s idiots like you who manage to get in public office and don’t have a clue how to fix problems!
Well, what did you think would happen with open borders and pillow soft stance against crime. You made the bed now sleep tight, don’t let the illegals and criminals bite…. you in the rear
America doesn’t have open borders.
Why are you feel a need to lie about it?
And the Guy (Governor)in Charge of this mess want to run our country
What mess?
How to turn a vibrant state into a sewer. Vote Democrat!
How to turn a functioning democracy into a failed fascist state? Vote Republican.
Constitutional Republic. At the very least, you could describe our form of government accurately. Then you might be able to have a conversation that’s not so intellectually dishonest, like most of your comments. At least you demonstrated your point about ignorance, yourself as the subject.
they should have all the illegals they welcome with open arms to help them with all the crimes!
You mean the illegals picking California crops?
You don’t seem to realize that “illegals” commit less crime than real Americans.
Why do you feel a need to perpetuate a lie?
I’m not sure what school you went to, but by my teachings 100% is much more than what about 27% ish percent ? Why do you feel the need to perpetuate a lie?
california, aka way northern mexico
Also in the land of fruits and nuts, Defund the Police.
Yup, defunding the police allows resources to be moved from warehousing the socially maladjusted and the mentally ill, to methods of treatment and social rehabilitation.
American’s are remarkably dumb and think that warehousing petty criminals – now more than 2 million in prison – will solve the crime problem.
Without adequeate social services, the mentally ill and maladjusted will continue to be mentally ill and maladjusted and will continue to be a drain of the justice system.
do you get paid by the word?
Yeah, right. Just another article about a bogus “study” to get Red-staters to feel good about themselves. Everybody hates on California but — here’s a newsflash — we don’t care. You don’t like us? Don’t come here. Although, careful, we might secede and take the Internet, the movies, cell phones, and all the other shit that was invented here with us.
The problem is Californians coming to Red States and bringing their woke leftist failed policies. Make you a deal, we won’t come there if you quit sending thousands of Californians to successful states!
The Republican Parasite states have never liked California, because it is successful and it’s policies often drive the policies in their own state.
Awwwwwwwww It make them gassy and constipated.
Maybe you should worry more about the ones who work leaving. Also all that sweet military money that you say you hate but cant get enough of. Please do secede I and many others will also laugh at your water struggles as you try to find somewhere else to steal it from.
Pretty much overblown hype. Just stop it!!!
Good job, Gavin! You’re ready to fail upward and become the Marxists’ top choice for President in ’24.
Government isn’t the problem.
The failure of American culture is the cause of the failure of America.
Why do you reply to every comment? There is a word for that, troll.
I believe he is paid. Misinformation league.
How did they define “violence”? Is it like Swedish study a few years ago that they modified to more accurately define what a sexual assault is, which drastically changed the numbers compared to previous methodologies to count the sexual assaults?
I got yelled at by a MAGA goon a couple of month ago. She was super aggressive. Does that count as violence? How about a senior citizen pushing me in the isle of a supermarket because she is an ahole? Is that a violence?
Making crap up for sensationalized responses from the far Reich.
Come to Florida and I’ll show you real violence. You can go unscathed when you go to Daytona Beach these days.
What don’t you people go back and live in Mississippi and Louisiana then tell me about violence and poverty.
I’m sure though that all the violence is of a peaceful nature…