The Marina Police Department put out its first annual report, a 64-page document bristling with facts and figures about crime, budgets, grants and other public safety data points.
The report, unveiled this week to the City Council, is an effort to “share with the community the things we are doing … and what their taxpayer money is going for,” Police Chief Edmundo Rodriguez said Wednesday.
The report, which contains crime statistics for 2005-09, represents the first such compilation of details about Marina police work since the city reorganized a former public safety department into separate police and fire agencies in 2007.
While many of the trend lines in various crime categories are down or flat over the five-year period, a couple of areas — fraud-embezzlement and burglary — showed sizable jumps.
Fraud-embezzlement cases rose by nearly 250percent over the five-year period. That’s primarily because of a rise in “identity theft” cases in which people lose their debit, credit or ATM cards to crooks, Rodriguez said.
Auto thieves no longer are most interested in stereo equipment, but in finding purses or wallets with electronic cards that can be quickly and fraudulently used to buy merchandise or get cash.
“We see a lot of that, especially with our larger retail stores,” Rodriguez said.
Burglaries increased by about 35percent over the five years. That’s a perennial issue, but some of the increase can be attributed to more shoplifting in
the city’s newer retail stores, he said.
Crimes that decreased since 2005 included robbery, rape, assault, larceny, auto theft and arson. Those that increased, besides burglary and fraud-embezzlement, included vandalism, weapons violations and public drunkenness.
The number of annual drug violations jumped only 2.3percent during the five-year period.
Sizable increases in traffic tickets (up 96percent over five years) and drunken driving arrests (up 93percent) point to the department’s increased focus on enforcing traffic laws. Two of the department’s 36 officers are dedicated to traffic enforcement, and a second motorcycle unit was added in 2010, Rodriguez said.
The number of injury accidents increased by only 2percent, while the number of non-injury accidents fell by 7percent.
Marina’s annual rate for more serious crimes — known as Part I crimes — declined during the past five years, hitting 2.7 percent in 2009, which was down from 3.1percent in 2008 and 3.4percent in 2007.
“In the police world, you live and die by statistics. It’s a good trend,” Rodriguez said. “Our crime rate is not bad.”
Rodriguez said he hopes to issue a 2010 report a lot earlier this year. He said the first report “took a little while longer than we would have liked.”
Article source: http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_17084272?source=rss
Category: Identity Theft Watch