California violent crime rate drops for 2010

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Just a few years after killings in the Bay Area's biggest cities lurched upward, the state's homicide rate fell to a 44-year low in 2010, officials said, easing concern that a sour economy might translate into desperation and danger on the streets.

Overall violent crime dropped as well, with the number of homicides, robberies, rapes and assaults down 6.4 percent from 2009, according to preliminary figures that the California Department of Justice collected from the state's biggest police agencies and released this week.

Total homicides fell nearly 10 percent in big cities - and 2009 had already been a pretty good year. The state's per-capita homicide rate that year was down 15 percent from 2000.

Police officials and criminologists said Thursday that they are happy with the trend but don't know exactly what has caused it. Some point to better policing, others to a society in which law-abiding citizens can spread information about crime faster thanks to cell phones and the Internet.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/26/MN6H1JLDAQ.DTL

[Puzzler]

1. Don't let the GOP know that ...

... they love high crime rates.

All that law 'n' order, ya know.

[Posteritatis]

2. Much like the conservatives up here, they'll just fabricate them as needed

Generally speaking people refuse to believe crime rates are ever anything up skyrocketing.

[Kind of Blue]

3. Great news but sometimes I think criminals

are adapting. In my county, that's followed the trend, though violent crimes are way down, drug-related crimes, domestic violence, pimping, identity theft are ever-increasing. One step at a time I guess. I like that nobody really knows why it's happening, but "Times have changed, and people are a lot more invested and connected in things around them."

KnR.

[onehandle]

4. Teabaggers hoarding guns and ammo to fight Black President are keeping arms scarce for criminals?

Better policing, communications, and just better civilization fights crime in general.

When the teabaggers sitting on too many guns figure out that Obama isn't going away, they will sell their wares and gun show straw purchasing will correlate with a spike in violent crime.

[Bucky]

5. See? I told you firing all those crime-recording clerks would pay off in the long run.

If we could only shut down 9-11 dispatch services next, I'll bet crime rates will plummet through the floor.

[KurtNYC]

6. I wonder what the White Collar crime rate is? mortgage fraud,

tax fraud, influence peddling. etc.

They never seem to track those crimes. Billions in losses, homes stolen.