Columbia crime up as national rates decrease
The increase could be due to a spike in population, CPD says.
Published Sept. 21, 2010
As national crime rates decreased in the past year, Columbia rates increased in reported offenses, according to the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States report.
The report showed an increase in violent crime and theft in Columbia, but a decline in property crime and motor vehicle theft between 2008 and 2009.
Crime in Columbia is at a lower rate in 2010 than it was at this point in both of the last two years. This comes after four years of crime increases, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
The increase in crime came along with a population increase of 10,000 residents over the past four years, according to the FBI report. The Uniform Crime Reporting Program has released numbers of reported offenses up to July 2010. Property crime has declined in 2010 while violent crime remained steady, according to the report.
Crime statistics don’t always paint a full picture, CPD spokeswoman Jessie Haden said.
“Some crimes are more underreported than others,” she said. Also, property crime logically decreases partially because of the preventability of property crime, Haden said. The police can leave notes on unlocked cars to warn the owners that they’re at risk, but measures against violent crime are more difficult because human emotions are involved. “We’ve got to definitely take a more thorough look at the violent crime numbers,” she said. “What is the information behind those numbers?”
CPD hired a crime analyst in 2010 to investigate crime statistics and the reasons behind them.
Motor vehicle theft has decreased each year since 2006, according to the FBI report. Haden attributed the decline party to the the department's bait car program.
The program uses specially equipped donated cars to draw in potential thieves. When someone attempts to steal one of the cars, the police wait until the vehicle is in a safe area and then shut it down and lock the thief inside.
“If he wouldn’t have stolen our car, he would’ve been stealing yours,” Haden said.
This year, CPD started using an automated license plate reader that can determine if a car has been stolen, even if it was taken from another jurisdiction.
The downtown police unit, which is part of CPD’s new geographic policing system, might also be a factor in the number of crimes reported this year. It’s possible that people report crimes more often because they know they will get a fast response, Haden said. Haden also said the downtown unit has been recognized for its response to alcohol-related crime.
“They’ve had a marked success,” she said.