9.7% Drop in Burglaries Paces State’s Decline in Major Crimes

Major crimes in California declined in 1987 for the first time in three years, due largely to a 9.7% drop in burglaries, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp said in a preliminary report today.

Overall, the state’s 48 largest police and sheriff’s departments reported a 1.9% decline in the six major felonies that make up the state crime index--willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

“We haven’t reached the millennium, but in the major violent crimes that we’re all so concerned about, we’ve had a leveling-off period and there may even be a reduction,” Van de Kamp said at a news conference.

He said the most important reason is probably the overall aging of the state’s population, with the result that those in the most crime-prone age group, teen-agers and young adults, make up a proportionately smaller share. Population experts warn that the trend may reverse in the next decade, Van de Kamp said.

He said the decline in burglaries, by far the most numerous of the reported crimes, was due in part to a 1981 state law he helped sponsor that required prison sentences for residential burglars except in unusual cases. Reported burglaries have dropped every year since 1980 and are at their lowest rate since 1968, Van de Kamp said.

Prison Population Soars

The 1981 burglary law is also one of the principal causes for the rapid rise in the state’s prison population.

The “flip side” of the decline in burglaries may be an 11.7% rise in automobile thefts, as thieves pick more lucrative targets that carry lighter criminal penalties, Van de Kamp said.