O.C. Crime Falls, Trend Rolls On

Serious crimes in Orange County’s seven largest cities plummeted at a faster rate in 1996 than the national decline, with murder taking the biggest dip, according to an annual FBI report released Sunday.

But violent crimes such as aggravated assault soared by as much as 53% in Irvine and climbed in Huntington Beach. Officials there believe the jump is temporary, sparked by greater focus on domestic violence in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trials.

Overall, authorities welcome the 1996 crime statistics, which revealed that violence is generally on the wane here and throughout the rest of the nation. The reasons for the decline are not clear, however, as those on the front line of the war against crime struggle to put the numbers into perspective.

Questions remain as to which law enforcement programs work and which don’t, and to what degree they affect crime rates. Even when the programs suppress crime, authorities ask, does the public feel safer?

“The weakness in the numbers is that you can’t discern beyond an increase or a decrease,” said Gregory Brown, a former gang member who now chairs the criminal justice department at Chapman University in Orange. “We don’t have enough information to fully explain the decline.”

Nationally, violent crimes decreased by 7% from 1995 to 1996, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In Santa Ana, violent crimes fell by 11% from 1995 to 1996, with murder dropping by 36% to a per-capita rate that police haven’t seen since the 1970s.

In Anaheim, detectives recorded only one gang-related killing in 1996, contrasted with 11 the previous year, with overall homicides reduced by half, from 25 in 1995 to 12 in 1996.

Huntington Beach had no murders in 1996, the first time that has happened since at least 1966, according to FBI statistics and police.

“We’re ecstatic that we didn’t have any homicides,” Huntington Beach Police Lt. Dan Johnson said. “It gave our detectives a chance to go back and work on old unsolved cases, and they’ve helped out in other areas as well.”

Police, probation officers and prosecutors gave some of the credit for the declines to various initiatives that get residents involved in protecting their own neighborhoods, as well as task forces that take an aggressive crime prevention approach.

“As a result of a cooperative, cohesive effort that unites law enforcement in Orange County, we have been able to get convictions in some of the toughest cases we have,” Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said.

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Another factor that helped suppress crime, they said, is longer prison sentences under such legislation as the three-strikes law, which keeps hard-core criminals behind bars.

“It’s very exciting,” Irvine Chief Charles Brobeck said of the crime decrease. “It’s not any one person or agency taking credit for it. It’s the different groups pulling together to acquire a quality of life that they can all enjoy.”

While law enforcement initiatives were responsible at least in part for the decline, criminologists also point to social and economic forces, such as the aging of the population and a decline in unemployment. And when the “criminally prone” population--generally teenagers--begins to swell in Orange County through the year 2010, some believe that crime will increase, albeit not to the level that it was in 1993, the year the county hit an all-time high of 196 murders.

The number of 15- to 19-year-olds is expected to swell from 153,000 in 1995 to 247,000 by 2010, according to projections using U.S. Census data.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” said John Robinson, a county probation official. “But if the justice system can continue to tackle [crime] from all ends of the spectrum, we feel that we have a pretty good, integrated way of approaching this [youth crime] problem.”

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So far, that integrated approach has worked in scattered pockets of violent crime in Orange County, authorities said.

On Dakota Court in Anaheim, a street once considered one of the most violent in the city, children now laugh and play and ride their tricycles on the sidewalk.

Where residents once bolted their doors and didn’t leave their homes after dark, many now sit on their front porches, enjoying the easy breeze of a recent spring night. And in an alley where darkness once covered up illegal drug deals, there is light, said Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas.

A combination of community policing and tough anti-gang task forces helped turn around the neighborhood, Vargas said. In 1996, there was only one reported serious crime, contrasted with 22 in 1993, when the city began focusing on the neighborhood.

Other neighborhoods have gone through the same resurrection, resulting in economic rewards such as higher occupancy rates in apartments and hotels.

Ignacio Alvarez, manager at an apartment complex on South Citron Street, said cooperation between police and residents has driven out most of the criminal activities in the neighborhood.

“We’re now 100% occupied,” said Alvarez, who has managed the Oasis Apartments for 11 years. “The tenants who left three or four years ago are now coming back. And they tell their friends. We don’t even have to advertise anymore.”

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Although the rate for the most serious crime, murder, fell countywide, other crimes such as rape, robbery and aggravated assaults increased in several cities.

In Irvine, where aggravated assaults jumped from 122 in 1995 to 186 in 1996, police said the upturn is a result of increased prosecution of domestic violence cases. Huntington Beach recorded 391 aggravated assaults in 1996, contrasted with 338 cases the previous year.

Public awareness of domestic violence has been heightened because of the Simpson criminal and civil trials, authorities said. In both trials, attorneys presented evidence that Simpson battered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in the years prior to her slaying.

“We’ve increased training in recognizing domestic violence and encouraging people to report those cases to us,” Irvine’s Chief Brobeck said. “So if the number has gone up in that category, that’s fine, because we want people to come forward.”

Rape also increased in Irvine, to 22 in 1996 from 14 cases the previous year. Orange recorded a 100% increase in the same category, with 30 cases reported in 1996 contrasted with 15 in 1995, FBI figures show.

Police authorities said rape is a crime over which law enforcement has little control, and furthermore, recent educational efforts to inform the public about date rapes might have encouraged more people to report the crime.

“In general, Irvine is still perceived as a very safe city,” Brobeck said. “I don’t think that has changed.”

The FBI annually releases crime data for seven types considered to be serious, which are separated into violent and property crimes. Murder, aggravated assault, rape and robbery make up the violent crime category while burglary, theft and auto theft are considered property crimes.

Since 1991, serious crimes have taken a nose dive among most major cities nationwide, including those in Orange County. Santa Ana, for instance, reported a 42% decrease since 1991, and serious crimes in Anaheim have decreased by 24.7% in the same period.

“We’re the 10th largest city in California,” Anaheim Police Chief Randall Gaston said. “And in 1996, we’re also the lowest in terms of violent crimes per capita among the 10 largest cities.

“That’s not an easy feat, considering that in addition to some 300,000 people we have living here, we also have about 25 million house guests, so to speak,” he said, referring to tourists.

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But a downward trend in serious crimes does not necessarily translate to the public feeling more safe, authorities said.

Gerald Caplan, dean of McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and former director of the National Institute of Justice, said there is a chasm between crime statistics and the public’s perception of crime, a theory that is being researched at UC Irvine.

“My life is being constrained in a way that I think about crime all the time,” he said. “I know not to take walks in the park at night, and I don’t go to the ATM machine after dark. . . . I think many other people feel the same way. And we’ve come to accept that lifestyle.”

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Crime Continues to Fade

Led by a major decline in murders, the crime rate in Orange County’s seven largest cities dropped 15% between 1995 and 1996. The 1996 total continues a trend that has seen crime fall 32% since 1990:

Countywide Crime Change, 1995-96

Murder: -44%

Rape: -7%

Robbery: -5%

Aggravated assault: -12%

Violent crime total: -9%

Burglary: -14%

Larceny/theft: -15%

Motor vehicle theft: -19%

Property crime total: -16%

Total crimes: -15%

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Total Crimes Trend

1990: 81,571

1996: 55,066

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Here are the detailed changes for each of the seven largest cities:

ANAHEIM

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1996 % change Murder 12 -52% Rape 73 -4% Robbery 968 -4% Assault 998 -28% Total violent crimes 2,051 -17% Burglary 2,698 -14% Larceny/theft 7,550 -14% Motor-vehicle theft 2,351 -22% Total property crimes 12,599 -16% TOTAL CRIMES 14,650 -16%

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FULLERTON

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1996 % change Murder 5 -17% Rape 26 -33% Robbery 201 2% Assault 253 2% Total violent crimes 485 -1% Burglary 930 -16% Larceny/theft 3,110 -23% Motor-vehicle theft 721 -17% Total property crimes 4,761 -21% TOTAL CRIMES 5,246 -19%

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GARDEN GROVE

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1996 % change Murder 4 -33% Rape 34 -13% Robbery 309 -11% Assault 498 -6% Total violent crimes 845 -9% Burglary 1,229 -5% Larceny/theft 3,245 -19% Motor-vehicle theft 1,158 -24% Total property crimes 5,632 -17% TOTAL CRIMES 6,477 -16%

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HUNTINGTON BEACH

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1996 % change Murder 0 -- Rape 26 -41% Robbery 194 10% Assault 391 16% Total violent crimes 611 8% Burglary 1,629 -22% Larceny/theft 4,161 -7% Motor-vehicle theft 904 -7% Total property crimes 6,694 -11% TOTAL CRIMES 7,305 -10%

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IRVINE

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1996 % change Murder 1 -50% Rape 22 60% Robbery 65 -13% Assault 186 53% Total violent crimes 274 29% Burglary 837 -6% Larceny/theft 2,647 -17% Motor-vehicle theft 332 -19% Total property crimes 3,816 -15% TOTAL CRIMES 4,090 -13%

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ORANGE

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1996 % change Murder 2 -67% Rape 30 100% Robbery 176 -9% Assault 354 -4% Total violent crimes 562 -4% Burglary 878 -9% Larceny/theft 2,019 -19% Motor-vehicle theft 626 -31% Total property crimes 3,523 -19% TOTAL CRIMES 4,085 -17%

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SANTA ANA

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1996 % change Murder 46 -36% Rape 62 -6% Robbery 1,178 -5% Assault 945 -17% Total violent crimes 2,231 -11% Burglary 1,822 -17% Larceny/theft 6,501 -12% Motor-vehicle theft 2,659 -14% Total property crimes 10,982 -13% TOTAL CRIMES 13,213 -13%

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Source: U.S. Department of Justice