SAN DIEGO — A new SANDAG report released Thursday says violent crime rates so far this year are the highest they've been in a decade.
The report gives us a glimpse at how violent crime has evolved following the pandemic. The mid-year report covers crimes reported between January and June of this year.
“There are four violent crimes that we track – homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assaults. and we did see that looking back till 2012, we had the highest violent crime rate per resident population that we’ve seen," said Dr. Cindy Burke, Senior director of data science with SANDAG.
Burke says the trends are consistent with what other large U.S. cities are seeing.
Robberies saw the greatest increase, with a 15% jump from mid 2021 to the past six months.
"About 15% of both aggravated assaults and robberies in region did involve use of firearm," she added.
Historically, our crime rate is still low when compared to the early 1990’s.
Our region has one of the lowest homicide rates at 51, up from 49 in the first half of 2021.
"Obviously one homicide is one homicide too many, and we know the primary motive has been documented by law enforcement as arguments among two individuals," said Burke.
Rape is the only violent crime that is down.
Burke says the pandemic has greatly influenced the trends, "we’ve seen some variation that I do think reflect some of the changes in our society the past couple of years."
Trends show that motor vehicle theft and car parts like catalytic converter thefts, are also up 12%. Burke says it could be a sign of the times with the ongoing supply chain shortages.
"I think we’re going to say the effects of the pandemic and the social isolation really going long-term," she added.
It’s not all bad news, property crime and residential burglaries are down overall – both are down 2%.
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