Crime continues to fall in Modesto. Police chief offers reasons behind downward trend
Crime data released this week by the FBI shows most reported crimes in Modesto have decreased in the first six months of this year compared to the same time period in 2019.
Overall, violent crime is down 8.5% and property crime is down nearly 20%, according to the preliminary data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. In these categories Modesto is doing better than the national average of cities its size, with populations between 100,000 and 249,999.
Modesto Police Chief Galen Carroll said for the best representation of the city’s crime rate, he compares the current numbers to the five-year average. That data also shows an overall decrease, with the exception of isolated spikes in some months.
Robberies are down 33%, burglaries are down 29% and theft is down 23% from last year.
Carroll credits the hard work of his officers and command staff.
Every week area commanders look at the data, identify hot spots in the city and send resources to those areas including extra patrols, surveillance by detectives and parking an armored truck equipped with cameras. The department uses predictive policing software to identify where certain crimes are expected to occur.
Also, the department’s Real Time Crime Center, a place where officers can access live feeds of dozens of cameras throughout the city, is now staffed by a full time sergeant and officer.
Carroll added that it was hard to tell if the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on the data.
Reports rapes trending upward
There were, however, notable increases in reported rapes and arson.
There have been 54 reported rapes in the first six months of 2020 compared to 40 last year, an increase of 26%. Nationwide, reported rapes have decreased by 17%.
Carroll said this was a concerning increase so he took a closer look at the cases. He said the increase came from assaults allegedly committed by family members, friends or spouses.
He said the number of rapes committed by strangers or someone the victim cannot identify remained steady at seven for both years.
Carroll said if there were a serial rapist targeting strangers, “We would mobilize the whole department to go track that person down.”
But when 87 percent of people know their attackers, Carroll said, there isn’t much the police can do in terms of prevention.
Of the 54 reported rapes this year, seven were delayed reports of rapes that occurred at least a year prior, so that, too, is affecting the numbers.
Reporting has influenced the numbers in arson cases. too, said Dustin Bruley, supervisor of the Stanislaus Regional Fire Investigation Unit.
The FBI data shows an 87% increase in arson fires, from 33 in 2019 to 62 in 2020.
The unit reports arson data to each jurisdiction it provides services to, including Modesto, and that jurisdiction is responsible for reporting the numbers to the FBI. Bruley said the unit only recently began reporting cases that were determined to be arson later in an investigation, so previous data only reflected cases that were deemed arson at the onset of the investigation.
Bruley didn’t know how much this affected the numbers from 2019 to 2020, but he did say there has certainly been an increase in fires started by transients this year. In the first six months many of these fires were dumpster fires but now, since the beginning of August, firefighters have been dealing with a rash of “turf war” fires along the Tuolumne River.
Firefighters and investigators have been responding to fires on the riverbanks between Mitchell Road and the Seventh Street Bridge several times a week to even several times a day. Bruley said the fires are being started by transients battling over encampment space.
The upward trend is consistent with national data. Reported arsons have increased by 19% nationwide and 20% in cities with populations comparable to Modesto.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 7:32 AM.
