After our 2016 Crime stats post a couple of days back, Matt was good enough to update the Decatur crime bar chart that he created for us back in 2013.
Thanks Matt!
Parker Cross
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trish
Fin Macool
At Home in Decatur
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Mr. C
Steve
Jane D.
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decatur mom
Overall downward trend but there are cyclic peaks along the overall downhill slope. Those intermittent peaks are probably why we sometimes have a perception of crime rising despite an overall downward trend. A peak feels high compared to the previous year or two even though it’s low compared to the previous cyclic peak.
A good example of that is homicides. Decatur averages less than one per year, so when one happens, it’s magnifiied.
“Those intermittent peaks are probably why we sometimes have a perception of crime rising despite an overall downward trend”
Also might affect perception when you have a nutjob yelling about the streets being a lawless hellscape that only he can fix.
The streets ARE a lawless hellscape. I witnessed not one, but TWO people drop candy wrappers on the road the other night. Decided right then and there that I have to sell my house and move. I refuse to live in the Mad Max world this town has become.
Even worse, twice in the past week I have seen uneaten pizza laying on the sidewalk. What are we feeding these people anyway?
This is somewhat deceiving at first glance – property crime (and thus total crime) are up sharply since 2010. Thankfully violent crime is down since 2010. But if pre-2010 data were omitted from this analysis — the results aren’t nearly as warm and fuzzy.
I just use the data I’m given.
But seriously – your critique is somewhat true (I would argue with “sharply”) but the trend reverts if you go back one more year to 2009.
Reminder when asserting arbitrary endpoints — all endpoints are arbitrary, save those chosen for the purpose of slanting the results.
For the record, next year I’m only charting from 2000 on simply to improve legibility.
It’d be interesting to see these data broken down by neighborhood although the data points may be too sparse to conclude much at that granular a level. I’d also be curious to know the dollar value of property crime over time–I theorize that it’s been going up while the overall number of property crimes has been falling. More entertainment systems and devices, less jewelry and cash. I consider our small ancient TV, which interfaces with nothing but the cable, to be a major crime deterrent. Even better than the alarm company sign which we left up for decades after we stopped service.
http://www.decaturish.com/2016/11/decatur-police-man-was-robbed-at-gunpoint-and-kidnapped/
Not all crime is created equal. These highway robbery cases – remember the one on W Howard a while back? – are very unnerving.
Agree. Undercuts our walkability motif. Especially when they happen in the daytime or evening, not the middle of the night.