Santee Sees Slight Drop in Serious Crime Rate, 2011 Crime Stats Released

Santee saw a slight drop in serious crime over the last year and a greater decline in the latest 5-year period, but also saw a slight rise in the property crime rate between 2010 and 2011, according to a report released Wednesday by the San Diego Association of Governments (report is attached).

Between 2007 and 2011, the city’s rate for FBI Index crimes fell 18 percent, SANDAG said in the report. Index crimes are homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

Santee was amongst the lowest violent crime rates in the county in 2011—2.27 per 1,000 people. The region’s rate for homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault was 3.41 per 1,000. The violent crime rate in Santee stayed about the same between 2007 and 2010, but between 2010 and 2011, it fell 14 percent.

The Santee serious crime rate in 2011 was 19.11 per 1,000 residents, compared with 19.16 in 2010 and 23.32 in 2007, said a report by SANDAG’s Criminal Justice Research Division led by Cynthia Burke.

San Diego County’s serious crime rate fell 20 percent in the past five years and 4 percent from 2010 to 2011, the report said.

Santee's property crime rate—measuring burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft—fell 19 percent in the five-year period, falling short of the county’s decline of 30 percent. But, between 2010 and 2011, the city’s property crime rate rose 2 percent.

Areas patrolled by the county Sheriff’s Department —17 jurisdictions including Santee—saw property crime rates fall 21 percent between 2007 and 2011, the report said.

SANDAG summarized key findings for the county:

• In 2011, the violent and property crime rates in the San Diego region continued to decrease overall, except for an increase in the number of homicides, which jumped 22 percent from 67 to 82. In addition, while property crime was down, some types of larcenies did increase in number compared to 2010 and there were increases in all three property crime categories in the last three months of 2011, compared to the prior year.
• In 2011, both the violent and property crime rates for the San Diego region decreased and were again at new 30-year lows (3.41 and 20.19, respectively, per 1,000 residents).
• There were 82 homicides in the San Diego region in 2011, a 22 percent increase from 2010. For cases where motive could be determined, there was an increase in the number attributed to domestic violence.
• The number of robberies decreased 9 percent from 2010, the greatest drop in the violent crime category.
• Bank robberies, which had spiked in 2010, were down 36 percent, possibly reflecting successful collaboration between federal and local law enforcement to address this issue.
• While residential burglaries were down 8 percent from 2010, nonresidential burglaries were down less than 1 percent.
• Although the number of larcenies was down overall in 2011, there were more thefts of bicycles, from buildings and other locations reported in 2011. Motor vehicle theft continued to decrease in 2011, down 10 percent from 2010, with drops reported by 82 percent of the jurisdictions.
• Despite the continued annual decreases in crime, there were increases in all three property crime categories during the last quarter of the year, a trend which will continue to be monitored.

The report noted the state’s shift of inmates from prisons to county jails and the release of certain nonviolent offenders.

“According to statistics from the San Diego County Probation Department, 948 postrelease offenders were released to San Diego County during the last three months of 2011, with 820 of these individuals reporting for supervision,” SANDAG said.

Given the release of these so-called PROs starting in October 2011, “combined with the increase in reported property crime in some jurisdictions across California,” SANDAG did added analysis—comparing the number of violent and property crimes reported in the first nine months of 2011 to the same time period in 2010, and the last three months of 2011 to those months in 2010.

"While the number of violent crimes was down for the first three quarters (6%) and the last quarter (4%), this was not the case for property crime, with a decrease of 7 percent between January and September 2011 (compared to 2010), but an increase of 6 percent for October through December (compared to 2010)," the report said.

But SANDAG said it was too early to read too much into this spike at the end of 2011.

"It is important to acknowledge that these data only represent three months of time and that numerous factors could be related to these recent increases."

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