Decline in Violent Crime Seen Statewide

Violent crime in California’s largest cities and counties decreased 3.7% during the first half of 2003, but some communities were exceptions -- San Bernardino and Inglewood among them -- and property crime inched upward across the state, statistics released Wednesday show.

While crime rates in California remain at 30-year lows, one category -- auto theft -- showed a significant increase, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said in presenting the latest numbers.

In Pomona, the number of car thefts jumped 51.3%, while in San Bernardino, the rate rose 37.5%. Bakersfield saw the biggest surge in auto thefts in the state, with an increase of 55.3%.

The rising number of auto thefts helped push the overall rate of property crimes up by 3.4% statewide. Combining the increased rate of property crimes with the decline in violent crimes, the statistics show an overall crime rate for the first six months of 2003 that was down slightly less than 1% from the same period in 2002.

Historically, the six-month statistics, while preliminary, have proved to be a good indicator of yearly crime trends.

In the city of Los Angeles, violent crime fell 3% from January to June compared with the first six months of last year. The number of homicides dropped by 20.1% in the city, and rapes and robberies were down as well.

In unincorporated areas of the county, violent crime rates remained essentially the same, declining by 0.6%. The number of homicides jumped from 50 killings in the first half of 2002 to 86 in the first six months of this year.

Lockyer, appearing with a group of police chiefs and county sheriffs, called the crime statistics encouraging overall. He said the increase in property crime -- up 3.4% statewide -- is probably a reflection of the lagging economy but was not as substantial a rise as some law enforcement officials had predicted.

While generally upbeat, Lockyer warned that increases in some communities underscore the need to protect police and sheriff’s departments from cuts in next year’s state budget.

“If we want to grow our economy, California needs to have peaceful places for people to work and live,” Lockyer said. “In the entire state, there are fewer than 90,000 sworn police officers protecting 35 million Californians. It’s a very, very thin ... police line that protects people.”

Lockyer said he and other law enforcement officials worry about plans by Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger to roll back the state’s car tax.

Cutting the tax would save car owners a collective $4 billion, but that money currently goes to local governments, many of which use the funds to pay for police and sheriff’s departments.

Unless Schwarzenegger replaces the $4 billion with an alternative source of money, local law enforcement would face large cuts, Lockyer said.

Lockyer said he had outlined his concerns in a recent conversation with Schwarzenegger. The attorney general also recommended that the car tax increase be replaced by a 5-cent tax on gasoline, a proposal he suggested placing before voters in March.

The drop in violent crime statewide can be attributed in part to the declining portion of the population that is male and between ages 18 and 28, Lockyer said.

Statistics show that men in that age group are most often the perpetrators of crime.

“When you have more of that group in your population, you have more crime,” Lockyer said. “When you have less of that group, you have less crime.”

Because the number of young men has begun to increase, crime rates could begin to creep upward again, he said.

The report released Wednesday covers law enforcement agencies serving 72 cities and the unincorporated areas of counties with 100,000 people or more.

To compute an aggregate crime rate, California tracks the number of homicides, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries and auto thefts.

The first four of those offenses are used to determine the rate of violent crime. Each of those four declined.

Among the Southern California cities that saw a marked decline in violent crime were Glendale (21.5%), Corona (19.6%), Ventura (16.9%), Ontario (13.7%), and Anaheim (12.8%).

But violent crime increased in Bakersfield, Inglewood, San Bernardino and Downey.

Inglewood led with an increase of 66.9%, Downey experienced an increase of 27.4% and San Bernardino was hit with a rise of 22.8%.

San Bernardino police officials blamed the city’s rising crime rate on continued economic problems, high rates of gang membership and a large number of parolees.

“This is a poor socioeconomic area,” police spokesman Lt. Frank Mankin said. “The town is trying to make a comeback.”

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Crime statistics

Data for selected cities for January through June 2003 compared with the same period in 2002.

Police Violent crimes Property crimes departments 2002 2003 Change 2002 2003 Change

Anaheim 680 593 -12.8% 1,963 1,933 -1.5% Burbank 146 133 -8.9 566 506 -10.6 Corona 163 131 -19.6 782 760 -2.8 Costa Mesa 139 124 -10.8 466 436 -6.4 Fontana 437 431 -1.4 1,048 1,117 6.6 Huntington Bch 155 98 * 655 354 * Inglewood 363 606 66.9 775 1,032 33.2 Irvine 78 67 -14.1 575 572 -0.5 Long Beach 1,766 1,762 -0.2 3,381 3,401 0.6 Los Angeles 25,751 24,978 -3.0 28,963 29,372 1.4 Oakland 2,907 1,857 -36.1 5,501 3,208 -41.7 Ontario 510 440 -13.7 1,336 1,509 12.9 Orange 146 125 -14.4 612 487 -20.4 Oxnard 388 411 5.9 778 753 -10.3 Pasadena 334 340 1.8 757 679 -10.3 Riverside 982 890 -9.4 2,460 2,291 -6.9 Sacramento 1,788 1,603 -10.3 5,819 6,250 7.4 San Bernardino 1,191 1,462 22.8 2,362 3,046 29.0 San Diego 3,437 3,622 5.4 8,755 10,236 16.9 San Francisco 3,012 2,893 -4.0 6,067 6,669 9.9 Santa Ana 976 918 -5.9 1,874 2,072 10.6 Simi Valley 71 84 18.3 249 320 28.5 Ventura 142 118 -16.9 425 520 22.4 * Sheriff’s departments

Los Angeles 4,110 4,087 -0.6% 5,372 5,547 3.3% Orange 113 113 0.0 235 277 17.9 Riverside 1,182 1,151 -2.6 2,715 2,781 2.4 San Bernardino 539 594 10.2 1,770 2,232 26.1 San Diego 592 523 -1.7 2,059 2,090 1.5

* Full data for six-month period not available due to problems with records management systems.

Source: California Attorney General

Los Angeles Times