The Eugene Police Department reported a drop in some types of property crimes last year, but an increase in some violent offenses, according to new data.
The department recorded fewer incidents of thefts, vehicle thefts, and crime damage vandalism in 2025 versus the year before. Burglaries were down by more than 31%.
"Mostly good numbers, mostly a good story—I would hope to believe—for our community," said Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner at a press conference Thursday. "A couple of areas for improvement, certainly, and things that we're going to pay attention to."
Incidents of “forcible rape" rose nearly 40% last year, according to the data, while aggravated and simple assault also increased by around 13% and 5%, respectively.
Skinner said the number of recorded assaults in 2025 wasn't far off the longer-term average, but he's aware those incidents can weigh heavily on the community.
“When you think about late-night-downtown, alcohol-induced types of things, when you think about the nuance of family violence, and what happens behind the closed doors of a family that's struggling—those things are really, really hard to, sometimes put yourself in a place to help deter that," said Skinner.
There was a 54% increase in criminal trespassing incidents in the data. But Skinner said this was actually due to increased enforcement and better cooperation with property owners.
While EPD reported that public calls about trespassing were down by 17% throughout the year, there were 129% more trespassing calls that ended in citations and 70% more that ended in arrests, while fewer led to warnings.
"We heard from our community over and over and over again that they were tired of calling in trespass or seeing people trespassing on private property and nothing being done about it," said Skinner. "So we leaned into that, and we were able to make a positive improvement."
Skinner said his priorities for this year are to continue focusing on trespassing, while ramping up efforts to try to prevent fatalities on the road. He said may EPD may work with other local agencies on traffic enforcement.
“I see aggressive driving and dangerous driving almost every single day," said Skinner. "We have to be better about being in the space of traffic safety and education. It's not our job exclusively to do that, but we understand that we hold a key to that for this community."
