I'd think that Berkeley's crime rates are probably influenced upward by its proximity to Oakland. The two cities are right next to each other.
Berkeley has some of the worst housing projects near Oakland, Emeryville and San Pablo, along with Latino gangs competing for the drug business.
Berkeley, as expected, has lax drug and homeless laws, so there is a natural market that evolves due to the lack of police enforcement. The violence comes as a direct result of the competition to bring drugs to their willing customers.
Also, Berkeley has a weird Goa/Climate Change/Secular-Progressive/incence/hippie culture that somehow approves of filthy streets and every vice known to man.
I hate Berkeley with a passion and the university produces good Marxist pupils...
The ironic twist is that in the Berkeley Hills, the far-Lefties live in multi-million dollar homes, far away from the vomit and urine of the Socialist policies created by the poltiicians whose names grace the bumperstickers of their Prius.
I live in the upside-down world of Northern CA.