Ventura County Ranks as Second-Safest Area in West

Ventura County remained the second-safest urban area in the 13 Western states, trailing only Provo, Utah, according to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report for 1992.

Provo had 42.4 serious crimes per 1,000 residents in 1992, compared with 43.0 in Ventura County. Ventura had ranked atop the list for six years until it was displaced by Provo in 1991.

Ventura looks especially good when compared with other counties in Southern California. In Los Angeles County, the rate of crimes reported to the FBI--violence such as rape, robbery and murder along with burglaries and thefts--was 74.1 offenses per 1,000 residents.

Orange County reported a crime rate of 56.3, San Diego County a rate of 66.1 and the combined San Bernardino-Riverside metropolitan area a rate of 74.6. Those levels compare with a California statewide rate of 66.8 crimes per 1,000 residents and the national norm of 56.6, the FBI reported.

Despite his county’s crime rate falling a third lower than California’s and a fourth under the nation’s, Ventura County Chief Deputy Sheriff Oscar Fuller noted some troubling trends.

“We’ve got to be careful we don’t get so complacent that we think it won’t happen here,” he said. “The problem with that kind of logic is that we’re a small reflection of the trends elsewhere. If they increase there, they’ll eventually increase here no matter what we do.”

Despite a 1% drop in serious crime reports last year, Ventura County crime was up sharply in every category compared with 1989, when the crime rate reached its lowest level since the early 1970s.

The number of murders, rapes, robberies and felony assaults jumped 8% in Ventura County last year.

“We’re going through some sociological changes,” Fuller said. “Crimes against people are rising more quickly than crimes against property. Young males . . . (show) a trend toward more violence. Small groups are assaulting one another more frequently. That’s symptomatic of a willingness to use a firearm.”