An unbiased review of Lake Forest crime

I had the day off work so I have taken it on myself to research a 2nd topic of Councilman Gardner - his recent posts on crime. Again, I am not an expert, but I enjoy doing research (and I learned a lot today!).

As Gardner references the staff report in his post, I started by reading it and watching the video of the council meeting.

In his recent Patch post, he says the following:

"having the highest crime rate of any of our neighbors disturbs me . . . we are the highest among any of our neighbors, and no one can give me an explanation."

Since he wrote that no one can give me an explanation, I thought this topic wasn't addressed during the council meeting.

HOWEVER, it was! His issues were addressed and thoughtfully answered at this city council meeting where crime was discussed.

Let's roll the tape on the City Council meeting (around the 54 minute mark):

Gated Community

Councilman Robinson starts a line of questions: “Laguna Woods is essential a gated city from the residential standpoint. . . Does that tend to have a significant impact on crime rates when a city is gated?”

Police Chief replies “. . . that would have an impact . . . generally, if you look at areas even within Lake Forest, those communities that are gated would have a lower crime rate within that gated community because it is just more difficult to get in there. . . “

Freeway Access

Councilman Robinson asks a second question: “proximity to a freeway – does that have an impact? Like I know RSM, I would say they don’t have a freeway, they have a toll road that goes through their town, so you have to pay to go on it. So it probably has a little different demographic than an actual freeway . . . does freeway access have some impact on crime?”

Police Chief answers “Yes it does. The ease of which criminals can come in and out of the community to commit their crime and get out without being detected is a factor. . . The toll road and freeway, we [Lake Forest] have them on both sides of us and provides an easy escape route.”

[Councilman Gardner's post from yesterday tried to argue against this fact - comparing Aliso Viejo's toll road access to our 5 freeway access (and yes, Lake Forest and Aliso Viejo both have direct exits to each major road, respectively). But a different demographic travels on toll roads compared to the general population on freeways.]

Crime from North

Councilman Robinson asks “There is more crime essentially in the northern part of the county?”

Police Chief replies “That would be a fair statement . . . In 2015, Lake Forest is 7th out of 34 cities within the county [Irvine was discussed as having a higher crime rate than Lake Forest].”

Councilman Robinson continues by saying “A lot of crime is occurring in the northern part of the county and then when you get outside of the county, there is even more crime north of Orange County . . . The further north we are in the county, so we are the furthest north (of South County cities), you can say Laguna Hills is on par with us. But you start getting closer to what I consider the crime center of Orange County . . . Based on some facts that there is more crime in the North part of the county. When you get into the South part here, you’ve got this natural barrier that Camp Pendleton provides . . . in reading some of the news stories and reading some of your reports that you send us from time to time, some of the more serious . . . crimes more often than not is someone who’s come from the northern part of the county . . .”

[Councilman Gardner's post from yesterday tried to argue against this fact - but Irvine was mentioned at the City Council meeting as having a higher crime rate than Lake Forest which supports this trend of higher crime from the north]

[Also, Councilman Gardner compares crime in Aliso Viejo (toll road) to Laguna Niguel (major freeway) - they are not comparable due to things like freeway demographics. Crime from North is a general factor, not the ONLY one. For example, RSM is further south AND only has access to a toll road. Aliso Viejo is a little further south and only has access to a toll road. It makes sense that RSM has the lowest crime rate followed by Aliso Viejo in his example.]

[The only other idea to mention in his 6/17 post discusses Economics, comparing Laguna Woods to Lake Forest. Last I checked, I believe retirees generally have less income, so he makes a bad comparison.]

Proposition 47

Councilman Robinson then discusses Proposition 47 which is a “catch and release” law as it relates to drug offenses.

Police Chief provides anecdotal support and discusses a situation in Lake Forest where an unnamed individual committed 7 crimes and was not yet detained. If he had been detained after the first arrest, 6 other crimes would have not been committed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His original statement is actually WRONG on both accounts - Irvine, a direct neighbor, has higher crime than Lake Forest AND the following reasons were discussed at the City Council meeting why our crime is higher than other neighboring cities: Gated Community, Freeway Access and Crime from the North (I included the summary comments on Proposition 47 because it was interesting).

This all makes a lot of sense to me. Neighboring cities have different characteristics like being off the beaten path (definitely Rancho Santa Margarita and to a lesser extent Aliso Viejo) or mostly gated (Laguna Woods) or further away from higher crime cities to our North.

I have only had time to research two different topics as this is my second blog post on the Patch, and so far I am not impressed with the truth or transparency of Councilman Gardner. But I still hold out hope – he may step up (stay tuned).

By the way, if there are other topics that people want to see me perform some research, please let me know in the comments section. I don't always have time to respond - sorry!