Number of serious crimes on decline in Las Vegas

Cheryl Miller

Thursday, July 15, 1999 | 10:34 a.m.

Mirroring a national trend, serious crime in the Las Vegas area dropped 12 percent between 1997 and 1998, according to preliminary numbers released by the state.

In 1998 homicides were down 21 percent to 117, reported rapes dropped 16 percent and the number of aggravated assaults dipped by 31 percent in areas served by Metro Police, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety.

The numbers reflect a decline in six of the eight crime categories the FBI considers indicators of the level of violence against people and property. Only the numbers of car thefts and arson increased in 1998, the figures show.

Pinpointing what caused the crime drop in Metro Police's jurisdiction isn't easy. Officer Steve Meriwether, Metro's spokesman, suggested the decline might be linked to new crime-fighting tactics and improved computer technology that helps police identify crime trends more quickly.

But Meriwether also pointed out that nothing directly links any of those theories to the crime decline.

"We'd like to think it's all of those things and us working more closely with the community ... but there's just no way to prove that," he said.

Terance Miethe, a professor of criminal justice at the UNLV, said the drop in crime may have more to do with an aging population than any specific crime-fighting technique. Historically, a large percentage of crimes has been committed by young men, statistics show.

"The best solution to the crime problem is to let people age," said Miethe.

If that's the case, the area may see crime rise as its school-age population, which required the construction of nine new schools last year, reaches adulthood.

Whether that happens, Miethe said, depends on a large number of variables, including the strength of the economy, whether the next generation stays in Las Vegas and simply how children are raised.

"The question I've always asked is, whose watching the kids when mom or dad or both are working 24 hours in the casinos?" Miethe said.

Other factors that may be contributing to the dip in crime include longer prison sentences for repeat criminals, a decrease in some areas of drug use, more gun control laws and a healthy economy, Miethe said.

Metro's crime numbers are part of a statewide set of criminal statistics that are scheduled to be released by the governor's office later this month. Each law enforcement agency in the state supplied figures from its own jurisdiction.

Even though most of Metro's crime figures declined, the amount of crime that occurred here last year is still higher than in the rest of the state.

In July 1998, the area Metro serves was home to 962,360 residents, or about 52 percent of the state's population, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety.

But crime in Metro's jurisdiction accounted for 57 percent of the offenses committed in Nevada. And Las Vegas seems to be the state leader for two crimes in particular: robbery and car theft. Seventy-four percent of all those crimes committed in Nevada occurred in Metro's jurisdiction.

There are no easy answers to explain those numbers.

"There are no statistics that point to why Southern Nevada is more prone to car thefts," he said. "There are more people in Southern Nevada than in other parts of the state. Traditionally, whenever you put a lot of people anywhere you're going to have more crime committed."