City Releases Crime Report

The City produced a report on crime and the crime is the report itself. There are so many errors, false assumptions, incomplete thoughts, and other problems it’s a good thing that the agenda report only provides a summary of the report itself.

Of course even a broken clock is right twice a day, so not everything in the City’s report should be dismissed. In Part 1 I will list those facts from the report which are true and useful to note. In Part 2 I will go through all the problems with the report. Needless to say, Part 2 will be much longer than Part 1.

It appears that this report was prepared because of my constant harping on the fact that Lake Forest has the highest crime rate among any of our neighbors, my desires for improvements in the way that Police services are allocated, and my wish that we establish a Public Safety Commission that will work with the Police to make life safer for Lake Forest residents. Councilman Nick has been supportive of my efforts, but the Gang of 3 has not, resorting, at times, to falsely quoting statistics to support their POV that everything is hunky dory.

SOME FACTS

· Crime rates for South Orange County cities are lower than the rest of Orange County and the rest of California as a whole. (I always made this point and the report agrees.)

· Generally speaking, for the 10 year period 2005 to 2014, crimes in California have been decreasing. (I always made this point and the report agrees.)

· For the 10 year period 2005 to 2014, using only Part 1 crimes, property crimes have tended to decrease while crimes against people have remained stable. (Part 1 property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Part 1 crimes against people include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.)

· From 2014 to 2015 Lake Forest had the second highest percent increase in Part 1 crimes (29%) and was way above the average (18%) for all 13 cities controlled by OCSD. In sheer numbers, Lake Forest had the second highest increase in Part 1 crimes (228), exceeded only by Mission Viejo (243). I have made this point before.

· From 2005 to 2014, 90% of Part 1 crimes reported in Lake Forest were property crimes and 10% were crimes against people.

· From 2005 to 2014 the largest percent of Part 1 crimes were “larceny-theft” (taking property without force), accounting for 73% of all property crimes.

· According to OCSD estimates, 67% of all Part 1 property crimes in 2015 were preventable.

· The City has approximately 30 active Neighborhood programs.

SOME LIMITATIONS ON THESE FACTS

These are the facts we can take away from the report. The focus on Part 1 instead of Part 1 and Part 2 means that the picture is somewhat skewed, since Part 2 crimes far exceed Part 1 crimes (I’ll talk about this in detail in my next article).

The fact that the report seems to skip around without reason, using 2014 at times and 2015 or 2016 at other times is a problem with the report and makes judgements a little difficult when we’re trying to see what’s happening now.

Nonetheless there is some useful information. To my mind, it reinforces my call for action. The facts that support my concern are –

· In 2014-5 we had the second highest percent increase in Part 1 crimes among all cities controlled by OCSD.

· In 2015 67% of our property crimes were preventable, but weren’t prevented.

· From 2005 to 2014 Part 1 crimes against people in Lake Forest are stable and not decreasing. This is troubling because nationwide the violent crime trend decreased 14.5% over that same period

Next time we’ll look at some of the problems in the report.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in November at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.