Santa Cruz Police crime report shows most types of crime are down in city
The Santa Cruz Police Department released their most recent crime report showing most areas of crime are down.
Chief of Police, Andy Mills, says this is just the beginning, “there’s a lot of things that need to be fixed in our city in terms of public safety, the one thing I do know is that working together the police and the community through engagement and involvement and people taking responsibility for this community, that’s what can make this thing happen.”
Here are the numbers:
CRIME 2017 2018
Robbery 55 30
Burglary 211 171
Larceny 1,437 1,237
Auto Theft 218 137
As for crimes that have gone up:
Aggravated Assault 128 129
Arson 6 12
The crime that has seen the most decrease, sexual assault by 51%.
Chief Mills says that statistic is huge, “I don’t know whether it’s because of the attention to the me too movement, i hope so, or men recognizing that we have to take responsibility for that but whatever it is we want to continue that trend and make sure we’re understanding the problems and focusing on those and finding longer term solutions.”
Some residents in the area were surprised to see those kinds of numbers. William Jones has lived here off an on for years and finds some categories to be accurate but others hard to believe.
Other resident’s like Devin Greene, say they aren’t surprised. “I feel like Santa Cruz should be known as a mellow place to be and a cool vibe and good people.”
And while most are staying hopeful crime will continue this downward trend, they also question how much is being reported, “it’s good to hear, but my other initial reaction is simply that maybe a lot of the lower end crimes are being under reported,” says resident Londa Holliday.
The department acknowledges that not all crimes are reported and takes that into account, “only about on property crimes, only about a third, a little bit over a third of people actually report crime to the police, even from a statistical perspective that helps us understand where crimes are and when they’re occurring,” says Chief Mills.
Another thing that could contribute to a negative view of Santa Cruz, how much social media highlights the negative incidents.
“With retweets or resending, you’re looking at the same stories often multiple times. So it is going to take time for us to reverse this trend of fear or perception of fear,” says Chief Mills.
He says a number of things are contributing to the decreases. The city departments working together, community involvement and the hard work officers put in everyday despite staffing challenges.
