Violent Crime in L.A. Declines in Most Categories

Violent crime in Los Angeles continued to drop this year in every category except homicide, where an uptick was seen for the first time in six years.

Through Dec. 14, violent crimes, including rape, robbery and aggravated assault had dropped about 5% over 1998, while homicides increased about 2%, according to preliminary Los Angeles Police Department statistics.

In the San Fernando Valley, violent crimes decreased by 6.9% over last year, while homicides dropped by less than 1%.

The crime rate, records show, is not dropping at the pace it had in previous years. That, coupled with the increase in homicides, has criminologists wondering whether the city’s crime rate, which has plummeted since 1992, is starting to level off.

“It’s bad news,” Eric Monkkonen, a UCLA professor who studies national homicide statistics, said of the increase in slayings. “The big concern is that it’s going to turn around.”

The LAPD statistics show the city is lagging well behind national trends that have serious crime dropping about 10% across the country in the first six months of the year--with a 13% decline in homicides.

LAPD officials, nonetheless, remain buoyed by the overall crime drop in the city and say they are optimistic it will continue to fall. They also said the city’s crime rate declines have exceeded national trends over the past couple of years.

“There is a lot to be pleased about,” Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the LAPD’s spokesman, said. “These numbers are good. Over the past several years they’ve been great.”

In the Valley, for instance, violent crimes this year decreased from 1998 levels in all police divisions except Devonshire, which posted a 1.8% increase.

Violent crimes decreased by 6.9% in Van Nuys, 7% in North Hollywood, 8% in West Valley and 11.4% in Foothill.

Homicides fell in all divisions across the Valley except Van Nuys, where the number of slayings jumped from seven in 1998 to 19 so far this year--a 171% increase. Last year’s homicide total represented a sharp decline from the 15 in the Van Nuys Division in 1997. Overall, the number of homicides Valleywide this year dropped about 0.5% from the 1998 level.

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Even with the slight citywide increase, the number of homicides in Los Angeles remains at levels comparable with those of 30 years ago. As of Dec. 14, there were 414 homicides in the city, contrasted with 404 for the same period last year, when homicides fell 27% from the 1997 level. In 1998, the city had 419 homicides, and at its current pace will exceed that number.

LAPD statistics do not include “justifiable homicides,” such as incidents of self-defense or cases in which a police officer lawfully kills a suspect. There have been 14 such killings by police this year, statistics show.

In areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, serious crimes, including homicides, have dropped about 13% through September, according to the most recent statistics available.

New York City, like Los Angeles, is also experiencing an upswing in homicides, while other crimes continue to drop. Both cities, however, have seen remarkable declines in recent years.

Franklin E. Zimring, professor of law at UC Berkeley and director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute, said Los Angeles and New York are hitting a “leveling off” period, but he does not believe there is cause for alarm. He said there are no signs homicides will start climbing in the dramatic fashion by which they fell.

“After years of success, achieving marginal reductions gets harder,” he said.

Zimring said expecting further significant drops in homicides is not realistic. “It sounds a little bit like ‘what have you done for me lately,’ ” he said of such expectations.

Criminologists, police and academicians link a number of factors to the steady decrease in violent crime locally and nationally over the past six years, including a stronger economy, stabilization of the lucrative and often-deadly drug trade, stricter sentencing laws, improved policing tactics, periodic truces among violent street gangs and an overall decrease in the number of young adults in the age groups most likely to commit crime.

The downward turn has improved the Police Department’s ability to solve crimes, particularly homicides where clearance rates have risen as killings decreased. Having more time to investigate, detectives said, was the key factor in solving more cases.

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According to LAPD statistics, eight of the department’s 18 stations have recorded a rise in the number of homicides. The LAPD’s South Bureau, which recently disbanded a large homicide bureau so detectives could be assigned to individual stations, recorded the largest jump in slayings.

LAPD statistics also show the number of emergency calls dropped 4% this year contrasted with 1998. Despite that drop, officers’ response times were 9% slower this year compared with 1998. Instead of averaging 6.7 minutes per emergency call, officers averaged 7.3 minutes per call this year.

Officer productivity also appears to be down, statistics show.

There was a 5% drop this year in “officer initiated activities,” which are non-radio call activities, such as writing tickets, investigating suspicious activities and assisting stranded motorists.

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Times staff writer Caitlin Liu contributed to this story.