National and local crime rates decrease in 2008

While both national and local crime rates decreased in 2008, more than routine police work helped bring the numbers down.

“What we’ve found over the years is when you reduce the amount of little disorder-type crime and nuisance-type crime throughout a community, it generally has an impact that’s felt all the way across the criminal spectrum where even violent crime is reduced,” said Criminal Investigations Division Capt. Tim Splain of the Asheville Police Department.

Nationwide, the number of violent crimes reported for 2008 decreased by almost 2 percent from 2007, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The violent crime rate dropped from roughly 467 per 100,000 inhabitants to about 455 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Asheville had 30 more violent crimes during the same time period, but had a decrease in the number of murders, down from 10 to two, according to the State Bureau of Investigation.

The Asheville police focus on violent crimes and gun-related crimes in an effort to keep people from using guns or shooting them in public, according to Splain.

“The other part of that is more jurisdictions do community policing and concentrate more widely on quality of life issues and minor kind of nuisance-type crimes,” he said. “And a lot of arrest work and investigation in there and our end result is we’re seeing anywhere from 20 percent to a 40 percent reduction in firearm-related calls for service which then also connects to a reduction in people being shot, people being killed, and on down the line.”

To further help fight crime, the police department’s crime analyst gathers data on reported crime and then the department addresses which areas need more attention, according to Splain.

“You’re going to find some differences here and there, but generally crime has come down and so I think we’re just part of that national trend,” said Ed Eads, the department’s crime analyst. “So people are going out less and there’s less opportunity for criminals to steal a pocketbook or that kind of thing.”

Unemployment benefits might also contribute to the downturn in crime, according to Eads.

“So there’s still a cushion going on, and that’s that people, yeah, they’re out of work, they’re probably staying home more, but they’re also getting funded in some way with the extended benefits.”

In addition to the downturn with the violent crime rate, the property crime rate also decreased by 1.6 percent nationally, according to the FBI. Even though the rate decreased, certain property crime types increased.

Nationally, burglary increased by 2 percent and larceny by 0.3 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to the FBI.
For Asheville’s reported larcenies, the city had 133 more between the two years, according to the SBI. Burglaries dropped from just over a thousand in 2007 to right above 900 in 2008.

“I think the property crimes are the things we really struggle with and that’s so hard to keep a handle on because some of that is, I mean, some of it’s probably symptomatic of the economy, although I wouldn’t paint that with a broad brush,” Splain said.

Police also arrest the same members of the homeless community for property crimes too, according to Splain, but that’s only a small segment of Asheville’s homeless population.

“And then we just, you know, there’s that other section of our population that are an addict population that are addicted to drugs that have resorted to, you know, break-ins and larcenies to further their drug habits, and that, we find, is always, you know, at the root of most property crimes,” he said.

Eads said another thing which sends up flags is spikes of crime.

“But if all of a sudden you have a real big spike, that kind of suggests you have one person or a group of persons involved in more than one breaking and entering,” he said. “And so I’ll look at those trends and just kind of see if something catches my eye.”

One person causing a lot of break-ins is another part of property crime that further makes it difficult to keep down, according to Splain.

“The other part of it is, you know, a person can break in and be successful at breaking in and stealing stuff from 20 places before we actually catch them and if they don’t admit to doing the break-ins and if there isn’t some other forensic evidence or underlying evidence we have, you know, a lot of these cases go unsolved.”

The police also meet every two weeks or so to discuss any new trends developing, whether the crime rises or falls, in an effort to stop crime before it gets out of hand, according to Eads.

“They can make sure they’re covering their patrol areas where those (crime upswings) are happening,” he said. “I think what we’re doing is helping, so I think what we’re doing is in the right direction, but I don’t see it accounting for the big drop, you know, that we’re seeing. I think that’s the national trend.”

Locally, aggressive efforts of the police contributed to the decrease in crime rates, according to Splain.

“At least locally, I credit our patrol officers and our drug suppression officers and our detectives who are out here aggressively working these violent crimes and violent crime activity, and also doing the community policing at the same time and gaining more trust, especially our low-income communities, and I think we’re seeing the benefit of that now,” he said.