New crime report looks at trends in Salinas

According to data from the FBI and a San Francisco based nonprofit, overall crime in Salinas is down for the first six months of 2017.

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice looked at six months’ worth of FBI crime statistics between January and June of last year. They only looked at cities with populations of 100,000 or more including Salinas.

The San Francisco-based nonprofit organization wanted to see how certain justice reforms affected crime in California. These are reforms like Proposition 47, which turned certain felonies into misdemeanors.

The report said crime trends were stable but there were variations between cities, including Salinas.

“The city has very unusual crime trends compared to the rest of the state,” said Mike Males, senior researcher at the CJCJ. “From 2016 to 2017, Salinas showed a major decline in property crime and an increase in violent crime.”

Data from the first half of the year showed violent crimes in Salinas were up, as well as murders robberies and aggravated assaults.

While the murder rate looks higher in that time period, you’ll recall we had 29 homicides in 2017, fewer than the 2016 numbers. Property crimes were down, including larceny and vehicle thefts.

But Salinas Police Chief Adele Frese is cautious about the figures. Over the last seven years, laws and propositions, like Prop 47, changed some crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.

“I think we need to understand that when laws change and certain things get de-criminalized or put into a different category, then we’re not necessarily comparing apples to apples when it comes to some of these offenses,” said Chief Frese.

To combat crime in the city the chief is going to start rolling out a crime reduction strategy that includes working with neighborhoods to get a dialogue going and to show them ways to protect themselves.

Police also work with the Community Alliance for Safety and Peace. That’s a collaboration between the local governments, schools, faith community and community members to make the city safer for everyone.

“They’re working together to create partnerships, developing relationships overtime and then learning the best practices around violence prevention,” said Jose Arreola, community safety administrator for the City of Salinas.