Nope, still one of the most dangerous states in the nation, much more so than statistics which include massive relatively safe rural areas show.
I have traveled and stayed in places all over the nation, many times in cheaper areas to keep costs down.
I can honestly say that CA has more widespread criminal elements than most other states diffused in urban and semi urban suburban areas.
It should not be a huge surprise considering CA started much of the current gang trends in the nation, and the culture that promotes such lifestyles.
Many of the current drugs that are the biggest problems in the nation also first became common or popular in CA before expanding elsewhere.
CA starts many of the nation's negative trends.
On the surface it is a great deception though. The streets are often cleaner looking, the weather nice, and all kinds of fees, fines, and bans etc controlling anything that might change that surface image.
Yet it is also one of the toughest on crime. Starting things like the three strike laws (second offense is double sentence, third is life), and routinely giving out much larger sentences than in much of the nation.
Enhancements for large numbers of offenses, and major weapon control laws.
It is one of the most authoritarian states as well, with the largest prison population, and far more on probation and parole. Laws against more things as a state than most places which the population can violate to join the ranks of criminals.
The problem is the culture.
The moral compass for much of the population is the law itself, and as a result it just grows and grows and grows, because it never can compensate.
I notice that more and more sellers will not bother to ship to CA. So, with all of the laws there, have they done much to reduce firearm violence? It would seem to me, that a determined criminal would always find a way to commit a crime, regardless of laws.
