An executive order directs state agencies to inventory their crime-prevention, victim-services and re-entry programs and report by Dec. 18, a plan the governor says is meant to carry his approach into the next administration.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered state agencies to take stock of how California spends money on crime prevention, help for victims and the return of people from prison, and to recommend a strategy that the next governor could keep in place.
The executive order, signed on Wednesday and effective immediately, creates what the governor’s office calls an Interagency Effort to promote Community Safety. Agencies must itemize their programs and investments, evaluate results, identify gaps in coordination and recommend an evidence-based approach that spans prevention, deterrence, rehabilitation and re-entry.
“California has made historic progress on public safety, and we have to protect it,” Mr. Newsom said in announcing the order. “By continuing to bring agencies together to measure results, close gaps, and build on what works, we can help ensure this progress continues for years to come.”
The agencies’ findings are due Dec. 18, about three weeks before Mr. Newsom’s term ends in January, The Sacramento Bee reported.
What the order asks for
According to The Bee, which obtained the order, the departments covered include Health Care Services, Corrections and Rehabilitation, Social Services, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the California Victim Compensation Board. They are to inventory their work on domestic and interpersonal violence, suicide prevention and assistance to crime victims. The state Department of Justice, including its Office of Gun Violence Prevention and Bureau of Firearms, is asked to take part in data sharing.
The order does not by itself create new programs or spending. Its practical effect is to produce a single accounting of programs that now sit in different departments, each with its own grant cycles and reporting rules, and to hand that accounting to whoever takes office in January.
When The Inquirer asked the governor’s office about the order, a spokeswoman referred the paper to the announcement and provided the text of the order.
The numbers behind the order
The administration’s case rests on falling crime. Citing state figures, the governor’s office said that from 2024 to 2025 homicide fell 18.6 percent, to its lowest level since 1966, while robbery fell 19.9 percent, violent crime 10.2 percent, property crime 14.3 percent and motor vehicle theft 25.8 percent. Since Mr. Newsom took office in 2019, the office said, homicide has declined 20 percent, robbery 31 percent and property crime 24 percent, while violent crime overall is down 3 percent.
Those figures describe statewide totals. They do not show how much of the decline can be credited to state programs rather than to local policing, national trends or the end of pandemic-era disruptions. Measuring that is, in effect, part of what the order asks agencies to do.
The governor’s office said the state has directed $546.8 million since 2019 to the California Violence Intervention and Prevention grant program, known as CalVIP, and to victim services. It pointed to research on Richmond’s Peacemaker Fellowship, which it said was associated with a 61 percent reduction in fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults from 2010 to 2024.
Separately, the Victim Compensation Board, which reimburses eligible crime victims for expenses such as medical bills, counseling and funeral costs, has paid $368 million in compensation from 2019 through this year, according to agency figures. The board did not say how much of the $546.8 million cited by the governor flowed through its programs.
What the agencies say
“Victims and survivors must remain central to California’s public safety strategy,” the board said in an emailed statement. “The Governor’s executive order creates an opportunity to strengthen coordination across the state, identify gaps in services, and ensure victims and their families can access the support they need to recover.”
The statement noted that “victim services are provided through multiple state departments and programs, alongside local and community partners,” and that the board “plays an important role by providing compensation to eligible victims of crime for qualifying expenses and helping victims and their families navigate recovery.”
Terri Hardy, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the department’s Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services, “as well as other relevant offices, are working to comply with the executive order, including the requirement to share information by Dec. 18, 2026.”
“Community safety requires a comprehensive approach that combines accountability with violence intervention and prevention, strengthens coordination among state and local partners, and helps victims and survivors access the services they need,” Ms. Hardy said. “By working together and focusing on evidence and results, California has driven low crime rates down even further.”
Who gains, and who pays
For the agencies, the review is mostly a reporting exercise on a short deadline. For the next governor, it offers a ready-made inventory, along with a set of recommendations that a new administration is free to adopt, revise or set aside.
Not everyone accepts the administration’s account of its record. Law enforcement groups have argued that the state has not paid for Proposition 36, the 2024 ballot measure that increased penalties for some repeat theft and drug offenses and steered some offenders into court-supervised treatment. In a joint statement in May, the California District Attorneys Association, the California State Sheriffs’ Association and the Chief Probation Officers of California said the governor’s revised budget again declined to fund the measure, leaving counties without “the resources they need to enforce the law and save lives.” The governor’s announcement of the executive order did not address Proposition 36.
The Board of State and Community Corrections, which administers CalVIP grants, and the Public Policy Institute of California, whose researchers have studied crime trends in the state, did not respond to requests for comment.
Graham Ostrowski covers the governor, the Legislature, state agencies and the state budget for the Sacramento Report. More from Graham Ostrowski
