Politics & Government

Violent Crime Rate Rises in La Mesa, Says New SANDAG Study

However, overall crime rates are down by 20 percent in La Mesa, and 18 percent in Spring Valley.

La Mesa and Spring Valley both saw a steep drop in overall crime over the last year and a greater decline in the latest 5-year period, according to a report released last week by the San Diego Association of Governments.

Between 2007 and 2011, the city of La Mesa's rate for FBI Index crimes fell 29 percent, SANDAG said in the report. Index crimes are homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. The rate fell by 31 percent over the same period in Spring Valley.

But La Mesa had an increase in violent crimes in 2011, compared to 2010, with a total of 227, a 23 percent increase. With 274 violent crimes in Spring Valley its rate dropped 19 percent.

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Rates were down in both La Mesa and Spring Valley for property crimes (24 percent / 36 percent), and domestic incident crime rates in La Mesa were also down by 22 percent, compared to 2010.

La Mesa’s property crime rate—measuring burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft—fell 34 percent in the five-year period, exceeding the county’s decline of 30 percent.

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The property crime rates in Spring Valley were down 36 percent since 2007.

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.

In 2011, SANDAG reported one homicide, 11 rapes, 93 robberies, 122 cases of aggravated assault, 228 motor vehicle thefts, 8 cases of arson and 308 (184 residential) total burglaries in La Mesa.

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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