Serious Crime in Simi Valley Falls 14.6% : Law enforcement: More intense street work by police has led to a drop in violent offenses, but graffiti reports have jumped.

Serious crime in Simi Valley between January and June dropped by 14.6% contrasted with the same period last year, but misdemeanors showed a dramatic 83.7% increase that police Thursday attributed mostly to a rash of graffiti reports.

Homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, auto theft, larceny and arson declined markedly, from 1,836 such crimes reported in the first six months of last year to 1,568 during the same period this year.

But while violent, gang-related crimes have dropped due to more intense street work by police, graffiti reports have jumped dramatically.

Police Chief Lindsey P. Miller said he does not know how much of the increase can be attributed to a rise in graffiti reports and how much to better reporting encouraged by a citywide crusade for tips to help catch spray-can vandals.

The number of malicious mischief cases, which include gang-related graffiti and non-gang tagger graffiti, rose from 543 in the first six months of 1992 to 2,639 in the first half of 1993.

That, in part, helped boost the number of reported misdemeanor crimes by 83.7%, from 2,346 in the first half of 1992 to 4,309 in the first half of 1993, Miller said.

The Simi Valley Code Enforcement Department employs a code officer full time to track graffiti cases. By identifying a graffiti vandal’s signature tag, the officer and police have been able to build larger cases against the taggers, resulting in stiffer penalties, Miller said.

“We’ve got more people calling us and better documentation,” he said. “When we do catch someone, we can tie them to a whole series of malicious mischief incidents.”

Miller refused to let his department take credit for the drop in serious crime in Simi Valley, which was ranked the fourth safest city of its size in the United States in recent FBI crime statistics, behind second-ranked Thousand Oaks.

“I wish I could give you something specific that says, ‘Since we did this, this happened,’ ” Miller said. “Crime is cyclical, and it kind of goes up and down. Whether we have real control over it is debatable.

“Basically, we keep a high profile in this city as far as law enforcement is concerned (and) the citizens and the visitors are law-abiding.”

Mayor Greg Stratton credited police and the people of Simi Valley with making the city safer. “In this community, if somebody sees you doing something you shouldn’t be doing or being somewhere you shouldn’t be, they will call the police.”

Calls for police aid rose 11.1%, with 19,965 calls logged in the first six months of 1993, up from 17,963 recorded in the same part of 1992, according to police statistics released this week.

Drug seizures in Simi Valley have also increased dramatically as narcotics officers working on multi-agency task forces in the Los Angeles County area were reassigned over the past year to work in their own cities.

Police seized $172,851 worth of illicit drugs during the first six months of 1993, contrasted with $45,306 in the same part of 1992--mostly marijuana and methamphetamine, Miller said.

Stratton said the decrease in crime may signal that the recession is easing.

“When people are hungry, they’re likely to do something rash,” he said. “We’re glad to see that we’re getting back to the lower statistics that are more typical of the community.

“We believe that’s the result of both a Police Department that is good and aggressive but fair, and of residents who basically support their police and provide them with the opportunities to find and catch criminals.”