Boulder City crime rate low and getting lower

By Jean Reid Norman

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | 4:02 p.m.

Boulder City, which had the lowest crime rate among Nevada towns and cities in 2007, is now able to brag about seeing even fewer crimes in 2008.

Violent crimes reported to police fell from 17 in 2007 to nine last year, Police Chief Thomas Finn said. The number of property crimes fell from 179 to 145 in 2008, he said.

Both of those numbers came after drops the previous year — from 19 violent crimes reported in 2006 to 17 in 2007, and from 254 property crimes in 2006 to 179 the following year.

Finn credited aggressive traffic enforcement for the decrease, saying that criminals know they are likely to be stopped and questioned for even minor infractions.

“What happens is that word gets out: If you drive through Boulder City and commit a traffic infraction, more than likely, you will get pulled over,” he said. “That word gets out not only among the law-abiding population, but also the criminal element. It’s a reputation I thoroughly enjoy having.”

He noted that some of the nation’s highest-profile arrests began with traffic stops, such as Timothy McVeigh, the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber, and the 1977 arrest in the Son of Sam murders in New York.

“I have a young, aggressive police force,” Finn said. “They aggressively pull people over for violations. They don’t necessarily cite them each time, but at least they talk to the people and do warrant checks.”

The trend in Boulder City mimics that in the state, which has also seen a drop in crime in recent years. From 2006 to 2007, the most recent year statewide numbers are available from the Department of Public Safety, the number of violent and property crimes per 1,000 residents in Nevada dropped from 46.26 to 42.97.

The number in Boulder City for 2007 was 12.61 crimes per 1,000 residents. It was the lowest among Nevada towns and cities with their own police forces.

Henderson registered 26.7 reported crimes per 1,000 people in 2007, and the Metro Police Department recorded 50.2.

Boulder City’s numbers are good, said Timothy Hart, director of the UNLV Center for the Analysis of Crime Statistics, but they must be understood as the number of crimes reported to police. They could be skewed by people’s willingness to report crimes to police.

“Certainly, what he’s doing is having an impact,” Hart said of Finn. “To what degree, you can’t discern from the numbers, but the numbers do show there is a precipitous decline in crime and violence in the jurisdiction.”

Finn said the community has a lot to do with the results. “The level of cooperation we get from the community is nothing like I’ve ever experienced back east,” said Finn, who moved from New Jersey to Boulder City to become police chief in 2006.

Still, he said, residents need to take simple precautions to protect their property, such as closing garage doors.

“We are one of the safest cities in the state, but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t people out there who want to commit a crime of opportunity,” he said. “ If they walk by and see the garage door open and see a table saw, they might just take it.”