Statewide Crime Rate Is Down in First Half of ’94

Although crime may be the hottest issue as the election season shifts into high gear, figures released by the state attorney general’s office Tuesday show that the number of reported crimes--including homicides--dropped 7.7% during the first six months of 1994 compared to last year.

The report, which shows a declining homicide rate for the first time since 1987, echoes federal and local reports that show that although crime has seized the public’s attention recently, crime rates are sinking in Los Angeles County and, to a lesser extent, nationwide.

The study compared the first six months of 1993 and 1994, and showed statewide decreases for this year in several crimes: homicide dropped 11.4%, forcible rape 7.8%, robbery 11.5%, aggravated assault 5.2%, burglary 8.1% and motor vehicle theft 6.9%. State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who is up for reelection this fall, attributed the drop to the deterrent effects of the “three strikes and you’re out” law, adopted in March, and other tough provisions such as a focus on incarceration.

“I don’t want to fool anyone--we still have a major crime problem in our state,” Lungren said. “But this shows some things are working and we can’t throw out those things.”

George Urch, a spokesman for Lungren’s opponent, former federal prosecutor Tom Umberg, dismissed the report as an election-year gimmick. Pointing out that crime rose in Lungren’s first year in office, Urch said: “I don’t think anybody’s buying it. Every time you pick up the paper there are crimes in your neighborhood that weren’t there a few years ago.”

Lungren and a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson--who is in a heated race with state Treasurer Kathleen Brown--said the public’s fear stems from the sense that crime recently has become more random.

“Even if the numbers are looking a little bit better, we’ve got a long way to go,” said Wilson campaign spokesman Dan Schnur.

The Brown and Umberg campaigns discounted the significance of the six-month study. Brown campaign spokesman John Whitehurst said that much of the drop in crime took place in Los Angeles County, and that other counties and cities across the state suffered increases. “If you took Los Angeles County out of the equation, crime would have gone way up,” he said.

In fact, preliminary calculations show that without the crime figures reported by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Police Department and other city police departments in the county, California would have a 3% decrease in reported crimes. The study surveys the state’s 67 largest law enforcement jurisdictions, containing two-thirds of California’s population.

Whitehurst repeated a refrain of the Brown campaign in challenging the crime statistics: “Do you feel safer now than you did four years ago?”

Wilson spokesman Schnur said things would look worse if Brown had been in charge over the past four years.

“Pete Wilson has fought tooth and nail to convince the Democratic Legislature to pass a series of tough-on-crime measures that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Schnur said. “It’s hard to tell how much Kathleen Brown would have put into those efforts.”