Friday, May 11, 2007
Crime: The Year in Review
A couple days ago I posted the link for a news story about crime in Lakewood. Today, we've got some of the actual data to share. I made these images from a presentation the chief gave a couple weeks ago.
Something I heard frequently from voters in 2003 is that they thought the city was not paying enough attention to property crime. Sure enough, the voters as a group were picking up a trend, as you can see from the following chart. One reason you will see me knock on a lot of doors during this campaign is to learn what other trends are out there. Meanwhile, the police department began a variety of programs designed to address property crime, and certainly it's working to an extent. Still, any crime is too much crime.
Oddly, lately, in keeping with a proud Lakewood history of rehashing things years after they happen, we still seem to be fighting the battle of whether to start our own police department. One would hope that improved public safety would be enough to settle the argument. One of the little factoids that's quite interesting is that for many months, thanks in large part to its motivated and organized citizens, Tillicum has been one of the safest parts of town.
Certainly one of the most controversial things the city has done has been to allow police to enforce speed limits in school and other zones. Compare the black line indicating accidents per month in 2005 vs. the blue line indicating numbers in the same months of 2006. The blue line here shows that in general, accidents have been down from year to year; but honestly, it's very difficult within this limited time period to assign credit. Still, whatever the reason, any reduction in accidents is a good reduction.
