L.A. Crime Falls 10%; Glendale, Santa Clarita Among Safest Cities

Continuing a five-year trend, serious crime reported in cities across the nation fell during the first half of 1998, with Los Angeles showing a 10% decline, according to statistics released by the FBI on Sunday.

Los Angeles County, Burbank, Glendale, Lancaster and Palmdale enjoyed declines in serious crime compared with the first half of 1997. Santa Clarita experienced the only increase in the county’s northern areas, according to the statistics, with a 6.8% rise.

In Burbank, an already safe community appeared to get safer the first half of 1998, with serious crimes dropping 13%, from 1,886 reported incidents over the same period in 1997 to 1,641 in 1998.

The tale was much the same in nearby Glendale, which experienced 9% fewer murders, rapes, robberies and assaults combined.

That downward trend was also evident in Lancaster and Palmdale--areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department--where violent crime fell 9% and 5% respectively.

Santa Clarita recorded 86 more violent incidents than last year. In all, crime there increased about 6% over last year.

Nationwide, the statistics indicate a 5% decline overall, with a 7% drop in violent crime. Taken individually, robbery fell 11%, murder 8%, and aggravated assault and forcible rape 5%.

Elsewhere in the state, San Diego showed a more-than-50% drop in murder, while it and San Francisco showed moderate drops in overall serious crime. San Jose and Santa Ana had slight increases in such crime, the statistics show.

Based on differences in methodology, the FBI’s statistics differ from crime figures released by the state attorney general’s office in September, which showed Pasadena having the largest drop in crime and El Monte and Pomona having significant increases.

A college town in suburban Buffalo and Simi Valley pushed Thousand Oaks from the top of the nation’s list of safe large cities for the first half of 1998, according to an analysis of the statistics. By the same measure, Santa Clarita was fourth and Glendale eighth.

Boasting a white-collar affluence similar to the two eastern Ventura County communities, Amherst Town, N.Y., was the most crime-free urban area in the United States with a population of at least 100,000, FBI and census figures show.

The rankings are based on a ratio of city population to crime reported in seven categories--murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and auto theft.

Reported offenses were down 8.3% in Amherst Town and 3.3% in Simi Valley. But they were up 4.4% in Thousand Oaks, largely because of about 40 heists by a serial burglar caught in June, officials said.

The big-city crime report, released twice a year, fuels the good-natured competition between Simi and Thousand Oaks. Both communities use the rankings to lure big companies, and real estate agents banner the results in sales brochures.

“It’s a friendly rivalry, I guess. Every time we meet at a function we rub it in a little,” said Simi Valley Mayor Bill Davis. “We don’t expect to be No. 1 every year, or No. 2. But, by golly, we’d better stay in the first three.”

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Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this story.

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America’s 10 Safest Cities

These are the lowest crime rates for cities with populations of 100,000 or more for the first six months of 1998:

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Crimes per City Population 1,000 residents Amherst Town, N.Y. 112,431 8.72 Simi Valley 106,974 9.26 Thousand Oaks 113,368 9.86 Santa Clarita 125,153 11.50 Sunnyvale 125,156 13.65 Irvine 127,873 14.45 Rancho Cucamonga 116,613 15.01 Glendale 184,321 15.06 Orange 119,890 15.16 Livonia, Mich. 105,099 15.19

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Source: FBI, U. S. Census Bureau