Friday, May 07, 1999
Middletown sees crime decline
But robbery, burglary rate up from '98
BY JANET C. WETZEL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MIDDLETOWN — Most types of serious crime are down so far this year in the city, but the first quarter brought a hefty increase in robberies and burglaries.
Police Chief Bill Becker gave a report to city commissioners this week that shows three rapes so far this year, compared to eight for the same time period in 1998. Ag gravated assaults dropped from 10 to four, thefts were down from 505 to 457, and auto thefts dropped by two, from 27 to 25. There have been no homicides.
“Overall, Part I (the most serious) crimes are down,” Chief Becker said. The total of all Part I crimes in the first three months of 1998 was 680, compared with 651 this year.
But robberies jumped from 11 to 17, and burglaries are up from 119 to 145.
“We noticed last year that our burglaries were up from 1997,” said Maj. Mark Hoffman, patrol division commander. “That's one of the targets our street officers have been working on this year. Detectives have cleared a number of robberies this year that have all been done by one guy. The stats show what happened, but not what you've done and how many crimes you've cleared. You could have one burglar working an area and causing a lot of damage, driving up the stats.”
Figures for less serious Part II crimes — vandalism, parking complaints and such — were not available. But the chief said the numbers are up so far this year, mostly because they now report every crime, regardless of how small, inflating the figures, he said.
Calls for service and arrests are down, and traffic citations have increased by about 47 percent, or 1,545 compared to 1,048 in 1998.
Maj. Hoffman said that can be attributed to several factors. For example, last year the department recognized that the traffic index — percentage of moving citations compared to injury accidents — was not where it should be, and stepped up citations.
“Also we have some selected traffic enforcement programs (STEP) where we identify high-accident locations and assign officers to those areas to enforce the traffic violations that have been identified as causing accidents,” Maj. Hoffman said. That could include an intersection where there are a lot of accidents, coupled with many red light violations, he said.
“Aggressive enforcement causes injury accidents to go down,” Chief Becker said.
Regardless of the reason, City Manager Ron Olson said he's happy to see the overall decrease in crime.
“But I don't know that it's appropriate to take credit for the drop in crime,” Mr. Olson said. “We have good crime prevention, community policing and neighborhood watch programs. All are functioning well, and I'm sure they had an impact.”
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