Recently, California has had some genuinely good crime news.
In 2025, violent crime declined 10.2 percent. Homicides fell from 1,666 to 1,374, robberies dropped nearly 20 percent, and property crime continued downward.
But one violent crime has proved remarkably resistant to the trend. Rape has settled into a stubborn plateau.
California recorded 14,720 reported rapes in 2019 and 13,081 in 2025. But most of those years look more like a flat line: reported rapes have remained between roughly 13,400 and 14,700 every year.
Compare that with what happened elsewhere. Since 2019, homicides have fallen about 18 percent and robberies about 31 percent. In 2025 alone, homicide fell 18.6 percent, robbery 19.9 percent and overall violent crime 10.2 percent.
The National Crime Victimization Survey data routinely identify substantially more sexual violence than police statistics capture, and research indicates reporting is even less common among male victims than female victims. Rapes therefore aren’t an estimate of how many occurred. They are the cases that made it into the system.
Which raises a question: Has this stubborn plateau become politically acceptable?
The Legislature has spent time fine-tuning how sexual offenders are classified, sentenced and registered. Recent legislation has closed loopholes involving vulnerable victims and strengthened penalties for some offenses.
SB 268 (Alvarado-Gil), which took effect in 2025, made rape after intentionally drugging a victim for that purpose a violent felony and California has also improved rape-kit procedures and protected the privacy of victims’ DNA. Those are worthwhile reforms.
But notice when most of them operate – after somebody has already been raped.
In light of the number of reported and unreported victimizations, the legislatures remedies to prevent rape seem feeble.
Since July 2024, thousands of California bars and nightclubs have been required to offer drink-spiking test kits and prominently advertise their availability. Another law requires covered establishments to provide drink lids (for a fee) upon request. Bartenders receive additional training intended to help prevent and recognize drink spiking.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that. A test strip that prevents someone from drinking a drugged cocktail has done something worthwhile.
But notice where the burden lands. Watch your drink. Cover your drink. Test your drink. Tell the bartender if something seems wrong. California’s answer to drug-facilitated sexual assault increasingly asks people to treat an ordinary night out as preparation for a potential attack.
Unfortunately, there are legitimate questions about how much protection those measures actually provide. Massachusetts studied distributing drink-testing kits statewide but declined to recommend it, citing significant limitations and variables affecting their reliability.
Drink covers may make slipping something into a drink more difficult. But they aren’t tamper-proof seals and they may actually have the consequence of identifying potential victims.
An unattended covered drink is still an unattended drink.
None of this means customers shouldn’t take precautions. The question is why precautions aimed at potential victims have become such a conspicuous response while the underlying criminal problem remains so difficult.
Consider Rohypnol.
Simple unlawful possession is generally treated as a misdemeanor under California drug law. Possessing specified controlled substances with the intent to commit sexual assault is a felony.
That sounds tough until one considers what prosecutors must prove.
Finding Rohypnol in someone’s pocket can establish possession. To establish the felony, prosecutors must also prove the person possessed it with the specific intent to commit sexual assault. Without admissions, messages, witnesses or other evidence establishing that state of mind, that can be impossible and bars are full of potentially intoxicated witnesses making them easier to impeach by defense attorneys.
The problem can become worse after the drug is used. The properties that make these drugs useful to sexual predators such as incapacitation, confusion, and impaired memory also makes the crime harder to reconstruct. The victim who could ordinarily describe what happened may be the person least able to do so.
SB 268 appropriately increased the consequences when prosecutors can establish that someone intentionally drugged a victim in order to commit rape. But it operates across a gulf of evidentiary hurdles.
Which raises an uncomfortable question: Has this stubborn plateau become politically acceptable?
Protect victims’ DNA. Test rape kits. Give bars test strips and drink covers if they help. But they aren’t a substitute for reducing sexual assault.
At some point, the question has to move beyond how California treats a rapist after the offender is caught and what another potential victim should do to avoid becoming the next one.
Is the relatively consequence free availability of Rohypnol that important and have we simply decided that managing the risk is easier than confronting the people creating it? Apparently, the answer to both is yes, and that’s an awfully thin answer to 13,000 reported rapes a year.
Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, focusing on California’s growing crime challenges.