California DUI Arrests by County

What it shows

Shows the DUI arrests that law enforcement agencies in each California county reported to the Department of Justice, as the California Department of Motor Vehicles prints them in its annual DUI reports, year by year from 2014 to 2021. The year view shows the state total, its rate per 100,000 residents and the change from year to year, and can set up to two counties beside each other; under it, the Department of Justice’s statewide count runs on to 2024, drawn apart from the counties’ total. The county view ranks every county for a year by its count, with each county’s own line beside its bar. Select a county for its figures, its rank and its share of the state. A county is where the report assigns the arrest, not where the person lives, so the chart gives counts and no county rates. The county table ends in 2021, the newest year the Department of Motor Vehicles has published, about four years after the year it covers. The Department of Justice counts boat DUI and duplicate cases that the Department of Motor Vehicles removes, so its statewide count runs 0.15% to 0.63% above the counties’ total in the years both give, and it has no county table.

How to read it

• The line is the state total: the sum of its 58 counties. Click any year to look at that year in the county view.
• The state’s rate divides its arrests by all its residents, because the Department counts arrests of any age. It uses one population estimate, July 1, 2021, for every year, so a rate for an earlier year is only approximate.
• The panel under the change bars is the Department of Justice’s statewide count, to 2024. It is a separate line, not extra years of the county total: the counties end in 2021.
• In the county view, bars rank the counties for the chosen year by count, and the small line beside each bar is that county’s own range over all the years: compare shapes, not heights. Search narrows the list.
• There is no county rate and no ranking by rate. A county’s count is where the report assigns the arrest, so it says more about where police make arrests than about who lives there.
• Arrests are not people, and the counts reflect enforcement effort as well as behavior.

Useful on: California DUI law and penalty pages · Local news on enforcement trends · Highway-safety and prevention reports.