L.A. Drives State Crime Statistics Up for 2000

Crime increased slightly in California’s largest cities in the first half of 2000, with Los Angeles skewing statistics upward with its 9.7% jump in crime, the state’s top prosecutor said Monday.

If Los Angeles were removed from the list, the state’s crime rate would have dropped slightly compared with the first half of 1999, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said.

Overall, however, crime increased 1.3% in the 77 California cities with populations of at least 100,000, Lockyer said. The largest increases were for rapes, which rose 9.7%, and homicides, which were up 4.7%.

The numbers still were lower than when crime rates peaked 25 years ago, Lockyer said.

“Every number is a victim,” he told reporters after speaking to law enforcement officials at a conference on DNA testing. “The only acceptable number is zero. I don’t predict we’re going to get there soon, but it ought to be a goal.”

Daly City, a San Francisco suburb with 104,600 people, showed the biggest jump with a 31% increase in crime. The city had 13 rapes in the first half of 2000, compared to nine during the same period last year.

Stanislaus County had a 33.5% decrease in crime, the largest percentage drop in the state.

Lockyer declined to give specific reasons for the increase in crime but suggested that California’s population of 18- to 24-year-olds is increasing, and also that rape victims may be more likely to report attacks.

“The most alarming statistic is rape,” he said. “It’s unacceptably high.”