Violent Crime Down in O.C., U.S. in 1995

Despite a steady drumbeat of crime news and high citizen anxiety, violent crime nationwide and in Orange County was down in 1995, the fourth consecutive year showing such a decline, the FBI reported Sunday.

Among Orange County’s seven largest cities, there was an 8% dip in overall crime for the year and an 11% drop in violent crimes. Despite a nationwide 8% decrease in murders, Orange County homicides remained unchanged from 1994, with 125 reported in both years, according to the FBI’s annual crime survey.

The most dramatic declines locally were charted in Santa Ana, the county’s largest city, with an 18% reduction in violent crimes and a 13% drop in property crimes. There were 2,513 crimes reported against people in the city in 1995, down from 3,079 in 1994. The Santa Ana robbery category showed the most change, with a drop of 30%.

The survey shows reported crimes declined in six of the seven Orange County cities with more than 100,000 residents. Only Irvine failed to show a decrease, with a 29% increase in violent crimes--213 incidents compared with 165 a year earlier--and only a negligible increase in overall crime.

Nationally, violent crimes of all kinds fell 4%, the FBI said, and all serious crimes--those against property as well as people--dropped 2%. Those findings come at a time when lawlessness ranks as a leading domestic concern, measured both by recent polls and by the emphasis placed on the issue this election year by Republicans and Democrats alike.

In the face of GOP criticism that that the Clinton administration has been soft on crime, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno called the FBI figures “a further indication that aroused communities and energized federal, state and local law enforcement are working together to cut crime. We will continue to put more cops on the beat, get guns off the street and put violent criminals behind bars.”

Most Southern California cities reported declines in crime rates at least equal to the national figures for 1995. Serious crime fell by 4% in Los Angeles, twice the national rate, and a full 16% in San Diego.

But murders rose slightly in Los Angeles, from 845 in 1994 to 849 last year. (New York reported 1,170 murders in 1995, down from 1,561 in 1994, while the number of homicides fell in Chicago to 824 from 928, and in Detroit to 475 from 541.)

In spite of the downward spiral in the number of reported crimes in recent years, people continue to point out crime as their primary concern. Orange Police Chief John R. Robertson said the blame for that seeming disparity between fact and perception should lie with the media.

“What people see on television scares the hell out of them, and it’s just not the reality,” Robertson said.

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Along with Santa Ana, the city of Orange reported the largest dip in overall crime, with a 14% decrease. Robertson said those type of numbers are encouraging and satisfying for law enforcement, but they need to be placed in context.

“There are many, many factors,” Robertson said. “We don’t want to take too much credit when crime goes down, because then we get blamed when there’s an increase.”

Demographics, geography, economics and even the number of liquor stores operating in a city are among those factors, Robertson said. Still, he said his department’s anti-crime partnerships with the community and gang suppression efforts have made inroads that are likely reflected in the statistics.

The city, again following the nationwide trend, has seen reported crime decline each of the last four years. Robertson said those declines may not hold up as demographics shift in the next decade.

Studies predict a large increase in the number of young adults in Orange County, a “significant burp,” as Robertson describes it. “Fourteen to 24, those are our most frequent customers,” he said. “The increase is supposed to begin in 18 months and peak in 2010. Obviously, that will be a significant issue for all of us.”

Garden Grove Police Chief Stan Knee also pointed to the public perception of crime’s threat as a key concern. But, unlike other officials, Knee said the public may be starting to see the true picture.

“I live here in the city and, by what I can gauge from people I see and talk to is that they feel safer than they did three years ago,” Knee said. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes, people feel less threatened than before.”

Knee credits any improvement in the public’s sense of safety to the success of community policing programs, which build partnerships with citizenry to combat the deep-rooted causes of crime and improve community communication. But any improvement in the mind-set of the public has yet to be reflected in national surveys.

Government officials seemed hard-pressed to explain the apparent gap between the drop in reported crime and the increase in political concern.

A recent survey by the Gallup Organization for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy found crime and violence to be the top national concern among adults. One out of six adults put crime at the top of their lists, and more than one out of four ranked it second or third, according to federal drug czar Barry R. McCaffrey.

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McCaffrey, recounting his observations during a recent nightlong ride around a drug-infested section of New York City with an NYPD lieutenant, said “things have gotten enormously better” compared to what he observed when he made the same trip three years ago.

“It’s still a nightmare,” he said, “but we are doing better.”

Frank Zimring, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School and currently a visiting professor at New York University Law School, attributed crime’s high ranking in the polls to the incidence of crime stories in the news media rather than to direct or even indirect personal contact with crime.

Gerald M. Caplan, dean of the McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, added that “some kinds of crime show a recklessness and a wantonness that’s new--home invasions, carjackings and the like. These have brought home to people how limited government protection is. There’s a new sense of vulnerability.”

Caplan, former director of the National Institute of Justice, cited reports of “irrational brutality and lack of conscience” among killers in their early teens.

Associate Atty. Gen. John Schmidt, the Justice Department’s third-ranking official, said a combination of community-based policing and “a higher level of community intolerance of violent crime” helped account for the decline in the crime rate.

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In the FBI’s 1995 data, murder’s 8% decline was the largest of any category. Among the other kinds of violent crimes, the FBI registered drop-offs of 7% for robbery, 6% for forcible rape and 4% for aggravated assault.

Property crimes dropped 1% overall, with motor vehicle theft down 6% and burglary and arson both down 5%. Larceny was the only major crime to register an increase, up 1% nationally from 1994.

Cities with populations more than 1 million showed the largest decline in crimes reported to police, down 6%, while those with 500,000 to 1 million inhabitants experienced a 1% increase in crime in 1995.

Overall reported crime was down in every region of the nation, led by a 4% decline in the Northeast. Overall crime dropped 2% in the Midwest and 1% in the South and West.

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Crime Takes a Dive

Serious crime declined 8% in Orange County’s seven largest cities last year, compared to 1994. Six of the seven recorded overall drops led by the 14% marks in Orange and Santa Ana. Irvine was the only city where there was more crime reported last year, but the increase amounted to less than 1%. Here’s the report:

SEVEN CITIES’ TOTAL

(ANAHEIM, FULLERTON, GARDEN GROVE, HUNTINGTON BEACH, IRVINE, ORANGE, SANTA ANA)

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 125 125 -- Rape 335 293 -13 Robbery 3,992 3,235 -19 Aggravated assault 4,271 4,111 -4 Total person crimes 8,723 7,764 -11 Property crimes Burglary 12,299 11,675 -5 Larceny 36,539 34,320 -6 Motor vehicle theft 12,486 10,796 -14 Total property crimes 61,324 56,791 -7 TOTAL CRIMES 70,047 64,555 -8

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ANAHEIM

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pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 24 25 +4 Rape 90 76 -16 Robbery 1,133 1,011 -11 Aggravated assault 1,397 1,363 -2 Total person crimes 2,644 2,475 -6 Property crimes Burglary 3,279 3,141 -4 Larceny 8,930 8,764 -2 Motor vehicle theft 3,429 3,019 -12 Total property crimes 15,638 14,924 -5 TOTAL CRIMES 18,282 17,399 -5

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FULLERTON

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 6 6 -- Rape 38 39 +3 Robbery 218 198 -9 Aggravated assault 281 247 -12 Total person crimes 543 490 -10 Property crimes Burglary 1,202 1,113 -7 Larceny 4,344 4,024 -7 Motor vehicle theft 1,191 863 -28 Total property crimes 6,737 6,000 -11 TOTAL CRIMES 7,280 6,490 -11

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GARDEN GROVE

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 7 6 -14 Rape 41 39 -5 Robbery 397 347 -13 Aggravated assault 577 532 -8 Total person crimes 1,022 924 -10 Property crimes Burglary 1,489 1,293 -13 Larceny 4,170 3,994 -4 Motor vehicle theft 1,534 1,529 * Total property crimes 7,193 6,816 -5 TOTAL CRIMES 8,215 7,740 -6

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HUNTINGTON BEACH

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 5 8 +60 Rape 39 44 +13 Robbery 169 176 +4 Aggravated assault 438 338 -23 Total person crimes 651 566 -13 Property crimes Burglary 1,788 2,084 +17 Larceny 4,634 4,474 -3 Motor vehicle theft 1,123 969 -14 Total property crimes 7,545 7,527 * TOTAL CRIMES 8,196 8,093 -1

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IRVINE

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 1 2 +100 Rape 15 14 -7 Robbery 51 75 +47 Aggravated assault 98 122 +24 Total person crimes 165 213 +29 Property crimes Burglary 926 894 -3 Larceny 3,194 3,191 * Motor vehicle theft 417 409 -2 Total property crimes 4,537 4,494 -1 TOTAL CRIMES 4,702 4,707 *

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ORANGE

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 8 6 -25 Rape 32 15 -53 Robbery 253 194 -23 Aggravated assault 326 368 +13 Total person crimes 619 583 -6 Property crimes Burglary 1,163 968 -22 Larceny 2,875 2,477 -14 Motor vehicle theft 1,066 908 -15 Total property crimes 5,104 4,353 -15 TOTAL CRIMES 5,723 4,936 -14

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SANTA ANA

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Pct. 1994 1995 change Person crimes Murder 74 72 -3 Rape 80 66 -18 Robbery 1,771 1,234 -30 Aggravated assault 1,154 1,141 -1 Total person crimes 3,079 2,513 -18 Property crimes Burglary 2,452 2,182 -11 Larceny 8,392 7,396 -12 Motor vehicle theft 3,726 3,099 -17 Total property crimes 14,570 12,677 -13 TOTAL CRIMES 17,649 15,190 -14

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*Less than 1% Source: FBI