FBI report shows LV crime rate continuing to decrease

Keith Paul

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1999 | 9:26 a.m.

The number of violent crimes in the Las Vegas area continued to fall in the first six months this year, following the nationwide trend for most of 1990s, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.

Metro Police had decreases in six of seven crime categories -- murder, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft. The number of rapes, however, increased from 256 reported in the first six months of 1998 to 280 reported in the first six months of this year, according to the statistics.

"It's encouraging that crime is down," Alfred Blumstein, director of the National Consortium on Violence Research, said. "It's almost become a boring story because it's been consistently down since 1991, as it was distressing before, because from 1985 until then it was up each year."

Metro Police credit not only their officers and programs that target crime but also the area citizens for helping continue the trend.

"They are a tremendous help," department spokesman Officer Steve Meriwether said. "We need the community's help. They tell us their needs and the problems in the areas."

Even with reported crime down in Metro's jurisdiction by 12.8 percent and violent crime down 8 percent nationwide, people shouldn't necessarily base their feelings about crime on the statistics, Randy Shelden, UNLV criminal justice department professor, said.

"They should look out their doors and take normal everyday precautions," he said. "The chances are before the night is over someone is going to be seriously injured in this city via a crime, and the fact that the crime rate has gone down will not be any solace to them."

Police acknowledge there will be more victims regardless of what the crime rate is, Meriwether said. The point that encourages police is that in the first six month this year there were fewer than in the first six months last year.

"We wish we could prevent anyone from becoming a victim, but there are still a lot less victims out there, which is very important," he said.

There were 3,079 fewer reported victims in Metro's jurisdiction in the first six months this year compared with last year, according to the statistics.

The statistics come from the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. The FBI gathers crime information from police departments nationwide to create the report. The statistics are only the crimes reported to police.

Shelden calls the FBI's report on crime a "snapshot of the United States taken from a plane." It's missing a lot of details, such as drug crimes, he said.

People in different parts of the same city will have very different experiences with crime, he said. While for some, hearing gunshots may be common, those in other areas may never experience the closeness of crime.

"Much of the crime increase (of the late 1980s) was in the inner city. Much of the decline is also in the inner city," said Blumstein, a professor at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "Most noninner city folks are probably not terribly affected by these changes."

But some of the crime-level changes can have a direct effect on those not living in high-crime areas. Auto theft and other property crime elbow their way into more people's lives than other crimes.

Last year auto theft was up about 18 percent, or more than 1,500, thefts from 1997. In the first six months this year auto theft was down 15.8 percent.

"We targeted different ways to prevent auto theft," Meriwether said.

The VIPER Task Force, which is made up of local, state and federal officers, is always looking for patterns in auto thefts and ways to attack auto-theft problems.

The reasons for the overall decrease in crime range from the strong economy to high incarceration rates to police targeting violent crimes or a combination of factors, Blumstein said.

"But these trends have to level off at some point," he said.