New Analysis Shows How Police Services Are Improving

We have a report from our Police Department that sheds some light on their extraordinary achievement last year that saw Lake Forest come in with the third lowest crime rate in our region. Previously Lake Forest was near the bottom of the barrel for years but in 2016 we came in #3, behind RSM and Aliso Viejo, the perennial #1 and #2 cities. Given the fact that we have much larger populations that either of these cities (83,910 vs. 48,516 and 50,509) our placement is even more impressive. Bear in mind, smaller cities almost always have lower crime rates, so when our crime rate is lower than cities like Laguna Woods (16,213), Laguna Hills (30,681), Dana Point (33,415), and San Juan (36,085) you have to take notice.

Looking more deeply into the data, it looks as if our decreases were in the areas of robbery (-43%), larcent/theft (-22%) and stolen vehicle (-13%). In 2016 we targeted these crimes with our “Don’t Make it Easy” (Click Here) program, and it had obvious results. Other cities didn’t do so well.

For years I’ve been asking our Police Department to do a better job and I’m happy to say that they are doing it. But Police can’t do the job by themselves. Go to our website and see how you can help. Click Here

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 on December 2nd at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.