Los Angeles, CA · 2020 to 2023
In Los Angeles, Black women's reported assault rate is 2 to 3 times Hispanic women's and about 5 times White women's
Comparing women in similar places narrows the gap, but about twice other women's rate remains after every adjustment the data allows.
From January 2020 through December 2023, the Los Angeles Police Department recorded 174,827 assaults, intimate partner assaults included. Per 100,000 residents a year, Black women's reported assault rate was 3,544. That is 2.9 times the rate for Hispanic women (1,240) and 5.7 times the rate for White women (622). It is also higher than the rate for men in any group, including Black men (2,894).
The Asian comparison moved 35% between records systems, so it is left out of the comparisons in the text. Source: LAPD crime data; ACS 2020 to 2024 5-year population.
Victim race is recorded by officers; the Census counts residents by their own answers. Los Angeles has 24% more residents who are Black alone or in combination with another race than who are Black alone. If every multiracial victim were recorded as Black, the ratios would be about 2.3 times Hispanic women's and 4.6 times White women's.
Place accounts for part of it, and about twice remains
A model at the census-tract level compared women of the same age, in the same year, in the same police division, and in tracts with similar poverty, income, unemployment, housing and homelessness. Against all other women, the gap went from 3.3 times to 2.5 times. About 36% of the excess is accounted for, almost all of it by where the assault happened. Group by group, the fully adjusted ratio is 2.1 times Hispanic women's and 2.4 times White women's.
Neighborhood conditions are census-tract poverty, income, unemployment and housing; homelessness is the 2024 LAHSA count by tract. Fully adjusted interval: 2.39 to 2.57. Source: tract-level model in the full analysis.
Neighborhood conditions are shaped by segregation and disinvestment, so the part of the gap that runs through place has been located, not explained away. What remains, about 2.5 times, is not accounted for by anything the data measures.
Partner assault, and a second records system
Intimate partner assault is close to half of assaults on women in every group: 47.5% for Black women, 49.7% for Hispanic women and 45.0% for White women. The gap is about the same size with or without it: 6.0 times White women's rate within partner assault and 5.4 times outside it.
LAPD moved to the FBI's NIBRS format in March 2024. From June 2024 to August 2026, the ratios were 2.8 times Hispanic women's and 6.0 times White women's, close to the 2.9 and 5.7 in the older records.
What this does not show
- Why. The data shows a difference in reported rates. It does not measure causes, offenders or circumstances.
- Every assault. Only assaults that reached the police are counted. What the assault-victim gap measures compares police records with the national victimization survey and hospital records. It also checks, with Los Angeles data, whether the same women are reported again and again, and finds about 1.1 reports per woman in both groups. Police data also reflects where officers patrol and who calls them, so it can't separate more policing or more reporting from more assaults.
- Where people spend time. Rates divide by residents. Divisions with many visitors, workers or unhoused people, Central above all, show high rates because many victims there live elsewhere.
- People. Rates count reports, not people: someone assaulted twice counts twice.
Part of the series Assault victims by race and sex, 6 reports.