County Sees Huge Drop in Major Crimes

State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren on Thursday announced dramatic decreases in major crimes in Orange County in the first six months of 1997, including drops of 23.1% in Fullerton and 20.5% in Costa Mesa.

Statewide, major crime decreased 8.2% compared to the same period last year, Lungren said.

“It just confirms we have the right strategies in place, and we hope it continues,” Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters said.

Robberies dropped 43% in Huntington Beach and 32% in Orange, while aggravated assaults reported to the Sheriff’s Department fell 30%.

Lungren told reporters in Long Beach that “crime in California continues to drop dramatically in virtually every category, building on the already historic declines we’ve seen in the last three years. Now we are at levels that we last saw in 1968.”

Statewide, Lungren said, the first six months of 1997 saw homicides fall 18.3% and robberies go down 14%. Motor vehicle thefts fell 9.3%, while burglaries dropped 8.5% and aggravated assaults 2.9%, he reported. There was no percentage change in the 3,249 forcible rapes between the first six months of 1997 and 1996.

Lungren, an all-but-announced Republican candidate for governor in 1998, attributed the drop to tougher laws; more aggressive policing by local law enforcement agencies; and the 148,000 inmates, many of them career criminals, he said, being held in California prisons.

Experts, however, have noted that states without laws such as California’s three-strikes statute also have experienced sharp drops in crime. They cite factors such as demographic changes, a graying of the population and a decline in the number of teenagers and young adults in age groups prone to commit crimes. Others have suggested that an improving economy is putting more people to work.

“There are probably many other contributing factors,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson. “But I don’t want to underestimate the efforts of law enforcement.”

Many police officials concede that the causes of drops--and increases--in crime rates cannot be traced directly to the impact of any program, laws or stepped-up police presence. Still, local police leaders said community policing philosophies--which stress partnerships with the public and long-term solutions to crime--have very likely contributed.

Community-policing officers have worked in Anaheim’s 10 highest-crime neighborhoods for four years now, Police Chief Randall Gaston said, and crime in some of those has been cut in half.

“Community-oriented policing is here to stay,” he said. “It’s not a passing technique.”

He also credited his city’s crime decrease to cooperation between police and probation officers and the help of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which identifies and deports criminals who are in the country illegally.

In Santa Ana, the community policing program was recognized as one of the best in the country by the Department of Justice two weeks ago.

And Walters said Santa Ana’s new larger jail has helped reduce crime there, by keeping minor offenders off the street. Before, they had to be released to ease overcrowding, and many then committed other crimes while they were out, he said.

Walters and Wilkerson also lauded the effects of anti-gang efforts, particularly intervention programs in schools.

In Irvine, which had no homicides in the first six months of both this year and last, the overall crime rate dropped 12 points, according to the attorney general’s report. City officials were pleased by the high ranking, but added that Irvine has worked to attain it.

The city’s community policing program encourages residents to alert the police at the slightest indication of trouble in their neighborhoods, said Police Chief Charles S. Brobeck.

“They are eyes and ears of community. They call things in, so we are able to intervene before something serious occurs,” he said.

In addition, teamwork between officers on patrol and those assigned to special investigative units has heightened in the past year, allowing police to spot problems and make arrests earlier, he said.

The statistics represent a preliminary report compiled for the FBI based on jurisdictions with populations of 100,000 or more. The attorney general’s office estimates that the 70 jurisdictions analyzed account for 65% of the crime reported in California.

Lungren’s office cautioned that the reports were preliminary snapshots for the first six months of 1997 and could contain errors. The office bases its review on reports filed by local police agencies. Often, there are corrections. On Thursday, the office acknowledged mistakes in reports on the number of homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults in Simi Valley and Oxnard. The Times found another mistake in Thousand Oaks, where a homicide wasn’t counted.

Lungren said the reports were generally reliable and could be counted on to stand up, year after year.

If the trends continue, Lungren said, “California will experience a more than 40% drop in the homicide rate, and a 30% drop in the overall crime rate over the last four years--the largest four-year drop in crime in the history of this state, or at least since we’ve been keeping statistics.”

Translating the four-year drop into numbers of actual crimes, Lungren said “more than 3,800 Californians will be alive who would not have been alive if the homicide rate of 1993 had continued unabated.”

Lungren called the reported 60% drop in homicides in Long Beach particularly “astounding.”

Walters in Santa Ana said residents actually feel safer these days.

“The things we hear from all of the neighborhood meetings is how much of a difference they see,” he said.

“We’re just wondering how long it’s going to continue,” he added.

Times staff writers Steve Carney, Marcida Dodson and Geoff Boucher contributed to this report.

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Cities’ Crime Rates Decline

Violent crime in Orange County’s largest cities dropped nearly 12% during the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 1996. Irvine had the largest decline in violence. When property crimes are included, however, Fullerton enjoyed the biggest drop, 23%. Here are the comparisons in the county’s cities of more than 100,000 people:

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ANAHEIM 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 1,045 992 -5.1 Homicide 3 7 -- Rape 48 50 4.2 Robbery 499 422 -15.4 Assault 495 513 3.6 Property Crime 2,692 2,078 -22.8 All Crimes 3,737 3,070 -17.8

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COSTA MESA 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 202 178 -11.9 Homicide 0 3 -- Rape 14 17 -- Robbery 88 67 -23.9 Assault 100 91 -9.0 Property Crime 744 574 -22.8 All Crimes 946 752 -20.5

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FULLERTON 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 241 206 -14.5 Homicide 3 2 -- Rape 9 11 -- Robbery 98 75 -23.5 Assault 131 118 -9.9 Property Crime 814 605 -25.7 All Crimes 1,055 811 -23.1

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GARDEN GROVE 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 399 405 1.5 Homicide 1 2 -- Rape 20 10 -- Robbery 162 131 -19.1 Assault 216 262 21.3 Property Crime 1,242 1,116 -10.1 All Crimes 1,641 1,521 -7.3

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HUNTINGTON BEACH 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 320 246 -23.1 Homicide 0 2 -- Rape 16 15 -- Robbery 112 63 -43.8 Assault 192 166 -13.5 Property Crime 1,344 1,110 -17.4 All Crimes 1,664 1,356 -18.5

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IRVINE 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 144 103 -28.5 Homicide 0 0 -- Rape 10 5 -- Robbery 29 23 -- Assault 105 75 -28.6 Property Crime 576 626 9.0 All Crimes 720 729 1.3

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ORANGE 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 273 249 -8.8 Homicide 0 3 -- Rape 14 14 -- Robbery 85 58 -31.8 Assault 174 174 -- Property Crime 789 621 -21.3 All Crimes 1,062 870 -18.1

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SANTA ANA 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 1,095 903 -17.5 Homicide 25 10 -- Rape 36 49 -- Robbery 579 463 -20.0 Assault 455 381 -16.3 Property Crime 2,457 2,278 -7.3 All Crimes 3,552 3,181 -10.4

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BIG-CITY TOTAL 1996 1997 % Change Violent Crime 3,719 3,282 -11.8 Homicide 32 29 -9.4 Rape 167 171 2.4 Robbery 1,652 1,302 -21.2 Assault 1,868 1,780 -4.7 Property Crime 10,658 9,008 -15.5 All Crimes 14,377 12,290 -14.5

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Note: Property crimes include Burglary and motor vehicle theft

Source: California attorney general’s office