Sheriff’s Department Reports Overall Decline in Serious Crime

The five cities and the unincorporated portions of Ventura County patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department were safer last year than they were in the early 1970s, according to statistics released Tuesday.

Overall crime in 1997 dropped by 5% compared with the previous year in Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Ojai, Fillmore and Moorpark, as well as in the unincorporated portions of the county covered by the department.

Oxnard and Santa Paula also recently reported declines in their overall crime rates; end-of-the year statistics are not yet available for Simi Valley, Ventura and Port Hueneme.

The drop in crime reflects similar declines across the state and nation.

The report’s findings were welcomed by local law enforcement officials, who give credit for the drop in crime to better community-based policing efforts, more active gang enforcement and tougher prosecution of those caught committing even less serious felonies.

“More good news,” said Sheriff Larry Carpenter, who credits the communities and his deputies for the continued decline in crime.

Some of the most impressive numbers are in Thousand Oaks, which last year was ranked just behind Simi Valley as the second-safest city with more than 100,000 people in the nation.

Except for a jump in the number of reported rapes in Thousand Oaks, from 10 in 1996 to 19 in 1997, serious crime dropped across the board. The overall number of homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts and auto thefts dropped by 16% in Thousand Oaks.

“We can’t say that one thing contributed to the decline,” said Cmdr. Kathy Kemp, who heads the department’s Thousand Oaks enforcement division. “What this is, though, is the culmination of years of work and community involvement.”

In Thousand Oaks, as in other communities, deputies have set up strong partnerships with citizen patrols to combat crime, Kemp said.

“The statistics reflect the number of crimes that have occurred in our community, but they can’t show how many crimes we’ve prevented,” she said.

The rise in reported rapes has raised concerns, Kemp said, but she attributed the increase in part to a greater willingness to report the crime.

“The majority of the cases--96% of them--were acquaintance or date-rape cases, and I think in the past there was a fear to report those kinds of crimes,” she said.

Countywide, rapes rose from 41 in 1996 to 58 last year, officials said. In Camarillo, the Sheriff’s Department reported a 3% increase in serious crime.

The city saw a 24% increase in violent crime, with a big jump in aggravated assaults, from 66 reported in 1996 to 84 reported last year. Some of those assaults are being attributed to gang fights.

Fillmore had the biggest jump in crime in communities patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department, with an 11% increase from the previous year.

Although violent crime dropped by 7% in the city, property crimes rose about 15%, with a huge increase in the number of residential burglaries.

There was no change in the number of serious crimes reported in Ojai, and crime dropped in Moorpark by about 7%.

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Crime Comparison

Changes in reported serious crimes * in Ventura County from 1996 to 1997:

Camarillo: + 3%

Fillmore: +11%

Moorpark: -7%

Ojai: 0%

Thousand Oaks: -16%

Unincorporated: + 1%

* Serious crimes include homicides, rapes, felony assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts and arson.

Source: Ventura County Sheriff’s Department