Beverly Hills is getting safer by several traditional crime measures.

That is good news.

It is also incomplete information for a high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth family deciding how much protection it actually needs.

The Beverly Hills Police Department reported substantial reductions across multiple crime categories during 2024, and the downward trend continued into 2026. In 2024, total crime declined 13 percent from the prior year, violent crime declined 17 percent, burglary declined 19 percent, residential burglary declined 18 percent, and motor vehicle theft declined 41 percent.

The improvement continued into 2026. Through May, BHPD reported year-to-date burglary down 42.7 percent compared with the same period in 2025, larceny and theft offenses down 25.6 percent, motor vehicle theft down 65.1 percent, and total property offenses down 34.6 percent. Overall reported offenses were down 23.4 percent year over year through May. BHPD’s archive now includes monthly reports through June 2026.

Those numbers matter.

But they do not answer the question a wealthy family should actually be asking:

What is our specific risk?

A billionaire does not become less visible because citywide burglary fell.

A controversial executive does not become less interesting to a motivated attacker because auto theft declined.

A prominent family does not become less predictable because overall crime statistics improved.

And that is the central distinction in this report:

Community crime tells us something about the environment. Principal-specific risk tells us what we actually need to protect against.

Professional VIP security in Beverly Hills has to understand both.

Executive Summary

The 2026 Beverly Hills security picture is more nuanced than a simple “crime is down” headline.

Several traditional crime categories have improved significantly.

At the same time, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth principals face risks that are not well measured by general crime statistics.

These include targeted violence, stalking, ideologically motivated attacks, sophisticated residential burglary crews, intelligence gathered from public information, business-related grievances, insider information, predictable movement, medical emergencies, and technology dependencies inside private security systems.

For high-net-worth families, the most important questions in 2026 are therefore not simply:

How many burglaries occurred?

How many cameras does the house have?

Is Beverly Hills safe?

The more useful questions are:

Who knows who the principal is?

Who may have developed a grievance?

What information about the family is publicly available?

How predictable are the principal’s movements?

What happens if the security technology fails?

Can the residential team actually detect and respond to an intrusion?

What intelligence is being collected around the residence?

And is there a trained protector available to act when a threat moves from observation to action?

Beverly Hills Crime Is Falling

The official crime trend deserves to be stated clearly.

Beverly Hills saw a significant improvement from 2023 to 2024.

BHPD reported:

Crime Category	2023	2024	Change
Total Violent Crime	134	111	-17%
Burglary	298	241	-19%
Residential Burglary	171	140	-18%
Larceny/Theft	1,141	1,047	-8%
Auto Burglary/Theft from Vehicle	351	240	-32%
Motor Vehicle Theft	111	65	-41%
Total Property Crime	1,550	1,353	-13%
Total Crime	1,684	1,464	-13%

BHPD also reported a 27 percent increase in total arrests in 2024.

The downward trend remained visible in 2026.

Through May 2026, burglary was down 42.7 percent year over year, robbery was down 55 percent, larceny and theft offenses were down 25.6 percent, and motor vehicle theft was down 65.1 percent.

Those are meaningful improvements.

They should not be minimized simply because a security company wants to sell fear.

Beverly Hills remains a highly resourced city with a capable police department, substantial security infrastructure, private-sector participation, and an unusually security-conscious population.

But none of that eliminates principal-specific risk.

Why Lower Crime Does Not Automatically Mean Lower Risk for a Billionaire

One of the assumptions I hear most often from wealthy principals is:

“Nobody knows who I am.”

That is not a security strategy.

A person does not need celebrity-level name recognition to become a target.

If someone is worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, their life intersects with enormous numbers of people.

They may employ thousands.

They may own companies.

They may make investment decisions.

They may terminate employees.

They may acquire businesses.

They may sell products people depend on.

They may donate money.

They may support organizations.

They may become associated with public causes.

They may become involved in litigation.

They may make decisions that financially affect people they have never personally met.

Most of those interactions never become security issues.

But a professional protection program cannot operate on the assumption that wealth without fame equals anonymity.

The murder of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson is a sobering example.

In August 2026, Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in federal court in connection with Thompson’s December 2024 murder. According to the United States Department of Justice, Mangione targeted Thompson because of his role as chief executive of UnitedHealthcare and conducted surveillance before the attack.

That attack did not occur because Midtown Manhattan had crossed a particular burglary threshold.

It was a targeted act against a specific executive.

That distinction is critical.

General crime measures probability across a population. Protective intelligence asks whether somebody may be interested in one particular person.

Those are different problems.

Wealth Alone Can Create Exposure

For a high-profile family, exposure may come from obvious sources.

Celebrity.

Media coverage.

Political activity.

Public-facing business disputes.

Litigation.

Social media.

But exposure can also develop quietly.

An employee may blame the founder for losing a job.

A customer may become obsessed with a company or product.

An investor may develop a grievance.

A person affected by a corporate decision may personalize it.

A mentally unstable individual may fixate on something the principal said, donated to, invested in, or represented.

A principal may attend an event or public function that reveals an affiliation or belief they never considered security-relevant.

That does not mean every executive needs to live as though an attacker is waiting outside.

It means a serious protection program should continually ask:

What has changed in the principal’s exposure?

That is protective intelligence.

The Residential Number Worth Paying Attention To

BHPD’s 2024 statistics contain another interesting detail.

While overall residential burglary declined from 171 incidents to 140, BHPD’s separately reported category of “Breach to Inhabited Dwelling (Residential)” increased from 78 incidents in 2023 to 101 incidents in 2024.

That represents a 29 percent increase.

It is important not to misuse that statistic.

BHPD identifies it as a derived category, and it should not be interpreted as synonymous with all residential burglary.

It also does not tell us why the increase occurred.

But from a protection perspective, an occupied residence presents a different problem from a theft at an empty property.

My professional takeaway is not that Beverly Hills is becoming more dangerous.

The broader data says the opposite.

The takeaway is that visible residential security hardware should not automatically be assumed to provide deterrence.

The Camera Deterrence Problem

One phrase I hear constantly during residential security assessments is:

“But we have cameras.”

That statement is often treated as though it ends the conversation.

It should begin one.

My response is straightforward:

Unless a camera can jump off the pole and physically intervene, the camera itself is not the response.

Cameras are extremely valuable.

They help detect.

They verify.

They document.

They provide evidence.

They can support investigations.

They can contribute to an early-warning system.

But cameras alone do not stop a person who has already decided to enter a property.

A sophisticated actor may conceal identity.

A criminal may accept that cameras are present.

A crew may actively attempt to interfere with security technology.

And recent Southern California burglary investigations show that this is not theoretical.

Sophisticated Burglary Crews Are Using Wi-Fi Jammers

In 2026, Southern California law enforcement agencies described organized burglary crews using increasingly sophisticated techniques.

NBC Los Angeles reported the arrest of seven suspects connected with residential burglaries across Ventura County, West Los Angeles, Burbank, and other areas. Authorities said some crews used hidden surveillance cameras, social media, and Wi-Fi jammers capable of disrupting wireless security systems.

The Los Angeles Times separately reported that law enforcement had encountered organized crews using cameras to monitor when residents left their homes and jammers to interfere with Wi-Fi-dependent cameras and security equipment.

For high-end residential security teams, that matters.

The lesson is not simply:

“Use wired cameras.”

It is deeper than that.

A Wired Camera Can Still Be Part of a Wireless Dependency

During assessments, I frequently hear:

“Our cameras are wired.”

That may be true.

But how are those cameras actually being monitored?

If the camera feeds eventually depend on a Wi-Fi-connected tablet, wireless bridge, cloud service, or another vulnerable communications path, the system may still contain a dependency the client has not considered.

The camera itself can be hard-wired while the operator’s ability to receive or view critical information still depends on wireless connectivity.

That is why I prefer looking at the entire data path.

Not just the device mounted on the wall.

At MSB Protection, our residential systems are built around wired infrastructure wherever practical, and our research and development work continues to examine ways to improve resilience against interference and other attempts to defeat residential detection systems.

The broader principle is simple:

Do not ask whether the camera is wired. Ask whether the security function still works when the wireless environment does not.

Early Warning Matters More Than Camera Count

The other major problem with camera-heavy security programs is human attention.

A mansion may have dozens of cameras.

That does not mean an agent can meaningfully monitor all of them continuously for an entire shift.

A serious residential program should therefore be built around early warning.

The protector’s attention should be directed toward relevant activity.

Depending on the property, that can involve combinations of:

photoelectric detection,

motion detection,

radar,

LiDAR,

video analytics,

perimeter sensors,

and other properly engineered technologies.

The exact system should be designed for the specific residence.

The concept is what matters.

Something changes.

The security system detects the change.

The protector’s attention is directed toward it.

The protector verifies what is happening.

The protector assesses it.

The protector responds appropriately.

That is fundamentally different from placing an officer in a car with an iPad and saying:

“Watch the cameras.”

A Tablet Is Not a Command Center

This is another pattern I have seen repeatedly.

A security company places a protector in a vehicle outside the property.

The agent has a tablet.

The cameras are displayed on the tablet.

Everyone feels comfortable because there is both technology and a human being present.

But there are two questions that need to be asked.

First:

What alerts the protector to the relevant camera?

Second:

What happens if the connection to that tablet disappears?

If the answer to the first question is:

“He watches it all night,”

that is not a serious detection methodology.

If the answer to the second is:

“He loses the cameras,”

that is not resilience.

A professional protection program should assume that components can fail.

The design question is not:

Can this technology work?

The better question is:

How does the protection mission continue when this technology does not work?

Cameras Do Not Replace Protectors

For high-net-worth residential protection, I believe a trained protector on site remains essential.

Technology can identify something.

A protector can interpret it.

Technology can issue an alert.

A protector can determine whether it matters.

Technology can record an intrusion.

A protector can react to it.

There is an important distinction between evidence collection and intervention.

A camera may provide excellent evidence after somebody crosses the property line.

That does not mean the principal was protected while the event occurred.

For families with sufficiently elevated exposure, the objective should not simply be to produce high-resolution footage of an incident.

It should be to detect, assess, and respond before the incident reaches the principal.

What Makes One Beverly Hills Mansion Harder to Protect Than Another?

This may sound surprising, but I do not begin with the price of the residence.

A twenty-million-dollar property and a fifty-million-dollar property still require the same fundamental security disciplines.

Know the principal.

Know the environment.

Control access.

Establish early warning.

Develop a baseline.

Create emergency procedures.

Understand predictable movement.

Maintain protective intelligence.

Build redundancy.

Have capable personnel available to respond.

The architecture may change.

The technology may change.

The number of personnel may change.

The geography may change.

But the underlying procedures should not.

A larger estate is not automatically safer because it has walls.

And a smaller residence is not automatically easier because it has fewer acres.

Professional protection begins with process rather than prestige.

The Biggest Residential Mistake: Relying on Hardware Instead of Capability

One of the recurring problems I see is an overreliance on visible security hardware.

Cameras.

Gates.

Alarms.

Intercoms.

Walls.

Artificial intelligence.

Those are tools.

They are not the protection program.

Criminal actors adapt.

If cameras become common, identity is concealed.

If wireless cameras become common, attempts are made to interfere with communications.

If a gate becomes the primary barrier, someone looks for another access point.

This is why protectors should think adversarially.

Not because everyone is trying to attack the house.

But because a security program should continuously ask:

If somebody wanted to defeat this system, where would they start?

Information Is Now Part of Residential Security

Modern high-net-worth protection is not only a physical security problem.

It is also an information problem.

A residential security operation may possess:

principal schedules,

family schedules,

business activity,

visitor histories,

vehicle information,

employee information,

medical information,

incident reports,

known stalker information,

travel plans,

vendor information,

photographs,

access records,

and information about family relationships.

That information can itself become protective intelligence for the wrong person.

Of all those categories, two deserve particular attention.

Schedules

A schedule tells somebody where the principal is expected to be.

It can reveal patterns.

It can reveal absences from the residence.

It can reveal travel.

It can reveal public appearances.

It can reveal events where access may be easier than at the home.

It can also create predictable movement.

A protection company asking for calendar access should therefore understand the responsibility that comes with possessing it.

Business and Public Activity

Business activity can also change threat exposure rapidly.

A transaction.

A lawsuit.

A termination.

A controversial announcement.

A public donation.

Attendance at a politically or socially sensitive event.

A major corporate decision.

None of those automatically means the principal faces a threat.

But they may change who is paying attention.

That is why protective intelligence should not be static.

A threat assessment conducted a year ago is not necessarily a description of today’s threat environment.

The “Nobody Knows Who I Am” Problem

Interestingly, in my experience, male principals in particular sometimes underestimate this issue.

I have heard variations of:

“Nobody knows who I am.”

The principal may not consider himself famous.

That does not mean he is unknown.

Corporate records exist.

News stories exist.

Company websites exist.

Property records exist.

Social media exists.

Professional networks exist.

Employees know who the principal is.

Former employees know.

Competitors know.

Vendors know.

Business partners know.

People affected by the company’s decisions may know.

The relevant question is not whether someone gets recognized while walking through a grocery store.

The relevant question is:

Could someone with motivation determine who this person is, where he goes, or what organization he represents?

For very wealthy principals, the answer is often yes.

Security Cannot Be Based on Past Achievements

Another mistake is evaluating a protection program by the résumé of the person standing the post.

Former law enforcement.

Former military.

Former special operations.

Those backgrounds can be extremely valuable.

They can also create false confidence when buyers treat previous employment as proof of current protective capability.

A wealthy family should never judge the quality of its security solely by past achievements.

The relevant questions are current.

What can the person do today?

What protection methodology has the person been taught?

When was the last physical readiness assessment?

When was the last medical scenario?

Does the protector understand the principal?

Does the protector understand the residence?

Does the protector know the baseline?

Can the protector identify a deviation?

Can the protector operate when the technology fails?

Can the protector move from residential protection into executive protection?

Can the protector explain why the security plan is structured the way it is?

A résumé explains where somebody has been.

It does not automatically tell you how that person will perform tonight.

Principal-Specific Risk Versus Community Risk

This distinction is one of the most important concepts in high-net-worth security.

Imagine two billionaires living three houses apart.

Same street.

Same police department.

Same burglary statistics.

Same weather.

Same neighborhood.

Completely different risk.

One may be a retired investor with almost no public profile.

The other may run a controversial multinational company.

One may rarely travel publicly.

The other may speak at conferences every month.

One may have no known adversaries.

The other may be involved in litigation with former business partners.

One may have adult children living independently.

The other may have young children with predictable school schedules.

The environmental crime rate is identical.

The principal-specific risk is not.

That is why security programs should not be designed from a ZIP code alone.

The Red Zone Still Matters When Crime Is Down

In our Beverly Hills protection work, I use the concept of the Red Zone when evaluating predictable movement around a residence.

At its broadest, the problem is mandatory travel.

A principal may have dozens of destinations.

But there are certain areas through which the principal repeatedly must move.

Leaving the residence.

Entering the street.

Passing through nearby intersections.

Transitioning between private property and public space.

The surrounding environment becomes predictable.

And predictability matters because it reduces uncertainty for somebody trying to observe the principal.

A lower citywide crime rate does not eliminate predictable exposure.

This is another reason residential protection should extend conceptually beyond the gate.

Protective Intelligence Should Be Continuous

A strong residential team should not spend an entire quiet shift waiting for something to happen.

It should be developing understanding.

What is happening around the property?

What has changed?

What vehicles are recurring?

What public information involving the principal has appeared?

What business activity may alter exposure?

What events are coming up?

What movement needs preparation?

What new contractors will arrive?

What has changed in the neighborhood?

What is being discussed publicly about the principal or business?

Sometimes there will be nothing significant.

That itself contributes to the baseline.

The baseline is what allows the protector to eventually recognize:

This is different.

The Beverly Hills Security Model Is Moving Toward Integration

The most effective high-net-worth protection programs increasingly integrate disciplines that used to be treated separately.

Residential security.

Executive protection.

Protective intelligence.

Medical readiness.

Cyber and information security.

Physical security technology.

Emergency preparedness.

Staff coordination.

Risk management.

A problem discovered in one area can affect another.

An online threat may change residential staffing.

A business announcement may change protective intelligence requirements.

A new stalker may change movement procedures.

A wildfire may change evacuation planning.

A medical condition may change what equipment travels with the principal.

The family is one system.

The protection program should behave like one too.

What Wealthy Families Should Ask Their Security Company in 2026

If I were advising a family office evaluating VIP security in Beverly Hills today, I would not begin with:

“How many guards can you provide?”

I would ask:

How do you determine our principal-specific threat exposure?

If the answer is primarily the neighborhood crime rate, the assessment is incomplete.

How do you detect activity before someone reaches the residence?

There should be a better answer than cameras alone.

What happens if the Wi-Fi environment is disrupted?

The security company should understand its actual technology dependencies.

How does the system continue if cameras or communications fail?

Resilience matters.

What does the protector do during a quiet shift?

“Watch the cameras” is not enough.

How is protective intelligence collected?

Who looks for changes involving the principal?

How is that intelligence transferred?

Residential information should not remain trapped at the residence.

What does the team know about the principal’s schedule and medical needs?

Protection extends beyond physical attacks.

How are protectors tested?

Not what jobs they had ten years ago.

What can they demonstrate now?

What happens when an alert occurs?

Technology without a trained human response is incomplete.

Who has access to our security data?

Schedules and operational information deserve protection too.

What Beverly Hills Crime Statistics Do — and Do Not — Tell Us

The 2026 crime data tells us something important.

Beverly Hills has made measurable progress across several major crime categories.

That is positive.

The data does not tell us that every wealthy resident’s personal risk fell by the same percentage.

There is no official Beverly Hills statistic for:

“probability that a billionaire is being researched by a grievance-driven individual.”

There is no citywide category for:

“executive with a hostile former employee.”

There is no crime table measuring:

“principal whose public schedule suddenly became controversial.”

And there is no general burglary rate capable of answering:

“Is somebody specifically interested in this family?”

Those questions belong to protective intelligence and individualized risk assessment.

What VIP Security in Beverly Hills Should Look Like in 2026

For high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families, professional security should be built around several realities.

Crime statistics matter.

But the principal matters more.

Cameras matter.

But early warning matters more than camera count.

Technology matters.

But technology without human response is incomplete.

Past experience matters.

But current capability has to be demonstrated.

Physical security matters.

But schedules, business activity, and public information can create exposure too.

Residential security matters.

But the intelligence developed at the residence should follow the principal into the field.

And visible deterrence matters.

But a determined or sophisticated actor may not be deterred simply because a camera is present.

The strongest protection programs do not depend on one layer.

They combine intelligence, technology, people, procedures, medical readiness, emergency planning, and continuous improvement.

The Question Wealthy Families Should Be Asking

The wrong question is:

“Is Beverly Hills safe?”

The data can help answer that question at a community level.

The better question is:

“What makes our family different from the average person represented in those statistics?”

That is where professional protection begins.

A family should never judge its security needs solely by past crime statistics or past achievements of the people protecting them.

The biggest mistake I continue to see around high-end residences is relying on cameras as though cameras themselves constitute protection.

And the difference between a safe neighborhood and a safe principal is having a capable protector on site who understands the principal, understands the environment, can recognize a threat, and can react when the security system detects one.

Beverly Hills can continue becoming safer.

I hope it does.

But professional protection is not built around hoping the principal remains part of the average.

It is built around understanding what makes that principal different.

About Michael Braun

Michael Braun is the Founder and CEO of MSB Protection and a former Special Unit Operator and former Manager at Gavin de Becker & Associates.

His career has included specialized protective operations, executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, security risk management, and the development of protection programs for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families.

His approach focuses on moving private security beyond simply providing a visible “body” and toward intelligence-led, risk-based protection integrating personnel, technology, medical preparedness, early warning, protective intelligence, and principal-specific risk.

His work includes executive protection, residential protection, protective intelligence, adversarial assessments, security auditing, and private security programs throughout Beverly Hills and Southern California.

MSB Protection also conducts internal research and development focused on improving protective technologies and the resilience of security systems against emerging threats.

Client-identifying information and sensitive operational details are intentionally generalized or omitted.

Looking for VIP Security in Beverly Hills?

MSB Protection provides executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, and security risk management for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families.

Our security programs are built around the principal rather than simply filling a guard position.

We evaluate threat exposure, residential vulnerabilities, early-warning systems, security technology, protective intelligence, medical readiness, emergency procedures, personnel capability, and the way information moves between the residence and the executive protection team.

Because the objective is not simply to record what happened.

The objective is to recognize the problem early enough to do something about it.

For more information, visit MSB Protection or contact our team to discuss a private security program.

Sources and Methodology

Crime statistics in this report are drawn from official Beverly Hills Police Department year-end and monthly statistical reporting. BHPD reported substantial declines across several categories from 2023 to 2024 and continued year-over-year reductions through 2026.

Southern California burglary information involving hidden cameras and Wi-Fi jammers is based on reporting regarding investigations and arrests involving the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, and other regional law-enforcement agencies.

The discussion of the murder of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson is based on United States Department of Justice filings and the August 2026 announcement that Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in connection with Thompson’s murder. The Department of Justice states that Thompson was targeted because of his position as chief executive of UnitedHealthcare and that surveillance preceded the attack.

Professional interpretations, operational observations, security methodology, and commentary regarding high-net-worth residential protection are based on Michael Braun’s experience in executive protection, residential security, and protective operations.