O.C.’s 7-Year Crime Drop May Be Ending

State data released Tuesday suggests that Orange County’s seven-year crime plunge appears to have reached a plateau, with the number of murders, rapes and assaults slightly rising during the first nine months of 1999.

Despite increases in these serious offenses, the county’s total crime rate dropped 5% compared with the same period in 1998. But the decline was much smaller than in previous years and was well below the state average.

While most of Orange County is safer now than at any time in the last two decades, several local communities recorded notable increases in certain violent offenses. In Anaheim, assaults leaped 40%, from 604 to 845. Thefts in Orange rose 24%. In Garden Grove, the number of homicides climbed from four to nine, while rapes in Santa Ana jumped from 57 to 75, according to state figures.

The new report marks the first time that the state has reported a rise in Orange County homicides since 1993.

Police officials said the increases indicate that the record drops experienced in the 1990s couldn’t go on forever. “There’s a great expectation on the part of the public that we’ll continue to enjoy these great drops in crime,” said Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas. “You can only go so low.”

Gilbert Geis, a UC Irvine professor emeritus of criminology, law and society, agreed.

“We’ll always have crime around. The issue is when you hit the plateau. And we may have hit it now,” Geis said. “Ultimately you can’t continue to decrease the crime rate.”

The statistics, published by the State Department of Justice, present crimes reported to the county’s nine largest police agencies, including the Sheriff’s Department, between January and September 1999.

Orange County reported upticks in homicides (9%), forcible rapes (9%) and aggravated assaults (2%). But those increases were offset by large drops in vehicle thefts and burglaries, which plunged 10% and 20% respectively.

Experts said the flattening out of Orange County’s crime rate shows that police are dealing with a changing type of perpetrator.

“Most of your career criminals . . . are in jail, so now you’re getting down to the noncareer criminal, or the irrational criminal,” said George Wright, chair of the criminal justice department at Santa Ana College.

As examples, Wright pointed to two murder cases last year: the killing of two toddlers at a Costa Mesa preschool allegedly by a man distraught over the breakup of a relationship, and the slaying in September of three Anaheim hospital workers, allegedly by a man upset about the treatment of his mother.

Police said the types of crimes that rose last year, from rapes to brawls, are often the most random and hardest to control. Police, for example, have little control over how many fights erupt in bars between drunk customers, said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters.

In Orange, total crimes rose 6%. But Capt. Art Romo attributed this to the opening of the Block mall, a key source of new theft reports.

In contrast, law enforcement officials said they are continuing to successfully wage war against gang activity. Gang-related homicides in Santa Ana have fallen from a peak of 48 in 1993 to seven during all of 1999, the lowest level in more than a decade, city figures show. Educating residents on how to protect their homes and vehicles has helped push property crimes further down, police said.

Despite the state’s latest numbers, the county has come a long way in cutting crime.

Since 1993, total crimes in the county have dropped by more than 30% and homicides have fallen by half. During that period, the crime rate per 10,000 residents declined from 530 to less than 350.

Some cities, including Fullerton and Huntington Beach, continued to report significant drops.

California’s overall crime rate dropped faster than Orange County’s, reversing a common trend. Violent crime fell 9.7% compared to the same period in 1998, and property crime decreased 18%.

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O.C. Crime Trend Continues Downward

In the first nine months of 1999, crime reports from Orange County’s nine largest police agencies dropped by 5%. But total homicides, rapes and assaults rose slightly during this period. Here is a breakdown: