Is crime boom something to worry about?

It has been a violent, and deadly, start to the new year in Stanislaus County.

In the first seven weeks of 2009, five people have been shot to death, four stabbed to death and two run down by vehicles.

That's 11 homicides, compared with two in the same period last year, four in 2007 and three in 2006. San Joaquin County, with about 150,000 more people than Stanislaus, has had five homicides this year.

Authorities say the type of homicides, many of which have involved family members, are not as alarming from a community-safety perspective as a spate of gang- or drug-related deaths would be.

"These are isolated incidents that really don't paint an accurate picture about what is occurring countywide," said Undersheriff Bill Heyne of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department. "There's not really anything we can do, except when we get domestic violence calls to make arrests, help in relocation or help get emergency protective orders issued."

For eight of the victims, authorities have arrested or know the identity of the person they believe is responsible. Four suspects are in jail.

Just two of the cases are open, meaning there have been no arrests made or no suspects identified.

One of the homicides is a shooting involving a Modesto police officer that could be determined to be justified.

Authorities have arrested family members in six of this year's deaths:

Professor Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld, who runs the criminal justice department at California State University, Stanislaus, said there are different types of family violence.

Sometimes a couple has a history of domestic violence, and it escalates, she said.

In other situations, there are mental health issues, or a family member who is depressed snaps after a disaster or other trigger. Those can end up as murder-suicides, she said. In cases involving mental illness, many times there is no history of domestic violence.

A rough economy can exacerbate problems in relationships, too.

"When the economy is hard, people get really stressed," Gerstenfeld said. "It brings out a lot of tension between family members. It makes tension that already existed worse."

A slow economy, she said, can force people to share living quarters. This can lead to a "bunch of people crammed into a small house," and make run-ins hard to avoid.

Gerstenfeld said it can be hard to address these issues, and that many times people don't know, or can't afford, the resources that exist to help.

Sgt. Brian Findlen of the Modesto Police Department said homicide rates can vary substantially from year to year. This year, the department has handled just two cases, including the officer-involved shooting in downtown Modesto.

"The goal of every member of our department is to hold criminals accountable for their violent actions, and we intend to continue the important task of keeping our citizens safe," he said.

Heyne said the cases his department has handled this year have been "pretty cut-and-dry" and won't drain a lot of resources.

"We're not having to spend huge resources for months at a time, unlike homicides that are random and have no suspects," he said.

And, unlike gang- or drug-related cases, which have a "retaliation factor," he said, a domestic homicide tends to be a single event.

The cases this year have not been indicative of a trend, Heyne said, so it's not realistic to say what the rest of 2009 might look like.

"It's way too premature to be making statements about how many there will be," he said. "Yeah, there are 11 homicides, but five are from two cases where it was domestic. If there were 11 separate cases and these were gang- and drug-related, I would say I would be a lot more concerned that we were in for a very long year."

Bee staff writer Emilie Raguso can be reached at eraguso@modbee.com or 578-2235.