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Go, Chief: Bratton Backslapped for 5-Year Crime Drop*
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2552 Reads
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 UPDATE BELOW
Angelenos are shooting, stabbing, raping, robbing, assaulting and stealing big from each other notably less these days.
LAPD Chief William Bratton (who got my vote for 2006 City Nerd Department Head) and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a drop in Part 1 crimes for the fifth straight year - a cheery little fact touted during Tuesday's lovefest for the chief.
Interesting that Bratton's getting kudos from Villaraigosa a good three months before the Police Commission is to decide whether to grant the chief another 5-year term, but maybe he's starting the politicking early to assure victory on this one.
For me, the stats up at the LAPD Blog speak for themselves:
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The per capita crime rate for Part I crime remained below the 1956 level for the second year in a row. Preliminary totals show that nearly 11,000 fewer persons were victimized by major crime last year.
According to the FBI’s mid-year Uniform Crime Report (UCR), published last July, Los Angeles placed second behind New York as the safest city among the ten largest in the nation. Los Angeles had eclipsed San Diego for the first time at mid-year 2005 and maintained its position at the end of 2005 with a crime rate of 351 per 10,000 residents.
While violent crime was up 3.7% mid-year across the nation, it declined in Los Angeles by 2.6% as the year closed. Property crime in Los Angeles dropped 9%, exceeding the national decline of 2.6%.
All but one of the eight categories of Part I crime showed decreases for the last five years. In 2006, homicides dropped 2.4%, the lowest since 1999; rape decreased 7.4%; aggravated assaults dropped 9.1%; burglary dipped 8.7%; car burglary dropped 9.2%; personal and other theft decreased 9.7%; and auto theft dropped 8.3%. Robbery was the only major crime category in the City to increase in 2006 after being down for the last 4 years.
The jump in robbery paralleled the nation’s, but at a lower rate. At mid-year, the national robbery rate was up 8.4% in the major metropolitan counties. At one point during the year, robberies rose over 10% across the City, but the year ended with the robbery rate up 5.3%. The largest increases occurred in the San Fernando Valley despite nearly 24% more arrests for robbery, including the capture of several prolific serial robbers.
The drop in crime is significant compared to LA’s most violent year, 1992, when Part I crimes were 317,796, and homicides were 1,083. In 2006, Part I crimes dropped 55% (as compared to 1992) to 142,502, and homicides declined 56%, to 478.
Victims of shootings declined steadily over the last 5 years. In 2002, 647 persons were murdered and 2,903 were shot. In 2006, 211 fewer victims were killed and 689 fewer persons were shot.
In 2006, the LAPD policed the city with a ratio of about one officer for every 445 residents, less than half the rate of New York City. “The LAPD’s successes in reducing crime over the last five years happened in spite of being one of the most understaffed departments in the nation,” Chief Bratton remarked. “In recognition of this, Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council have authorized the hiring of 1,000 more officers over the next few years.”
The following chart shows the change in Part I crime nationwide from 2004 to 2005, compared to changes for Los Angeles in 2005 and 2006:
US-2005 Crime LA-2005 LA-2006
+3.3% Homicide -6.0% -2.4%
-1.2% Rape -16.3% -7.4%
+3.9% Robbery -4.1% +5.3%
+1.8% Agg. Assault -40.0% -9.1%
+2.3% Violent Crime -26.8% -2.6%
+0.5% Burglary -5.6% -8.7%
-2.3% Larceny Theft -12.2% -9.7%
-0.2% Auto Theft -6.6% -8.3%
-1.5% Property Crime -9.6% -9.0%
+1.% Part I Crime -14.0% -7.7%
The following chart shows the rankings of the ten largest US cities for crime rates per 10,000 residents as of mid-year 2006, according to the FBI’s UCR.
City Population Crime Rate
1 New York 8,101,321 119
2 Los Angeles 3,864,018 173
3 San Diego 1,281,366 201
4 Chicago 2,882,746 215
5 Philadelphia 1,484,224 268
6 Las Vegas 1,239,805 293
Metro
7 Houston 2,043,446 344
8 San Antonio 1,235,128 342
9 Phoenix 1,428,973 344
10 Dallas 1,228,613 399 Some will say, "Yeah, but what about all those controversial use of force cases that keep riling the populace?
Look - plenty of pixels have been spent in this space debating the individual cases, and I'm not going to rehash tthem. Taken as a whole, they don't - to me - demonstrate any sort of a trend, so much as a nasty fact of police work: when suspects play rough, cops have to play rougher.
Sometimes lines are crossed, and policies violated, and there's a review process in place to decide when and if punishment or corrective action should be meted out. It runs its course, and good souls invariably disagree on whether justice was done, but it's the only system we've got.
In the grand scheme, however, LAPD is a relatively small, undermanned department policing a city of nearly 4 million souls.
UPDATE:
Of course, I should point out that Gang violence in L.A. is rising, particularly between black and Latino gang members.
The Valley saw a 42.4% increase in gang-related crimes last year - enough to send Villaraigosa to DC today, where he's huddling with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to discuss ways of combatting it. Villaraigosa and Bratton are planning to announce a new anti-gang push later this month, AP reports.
Chief Bratton has succeeded in - at the very least - executing his primary job duty: keeping us safe. He should be given every resource he needs, including our vote of confidence, to keep doing that.
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| Posted by: Mack_Reed on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 - 09:53 AM
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