Violent crime per population shows decreasing trend

March 11, 5:01 PMBirmingham Crime ExaminerJoel Hendon

Previous Next

Comment Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Birmingham Crime Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

It might seem logical that violent crime would increase during a period of poor economic conditions and high unemployment. But according to statistics kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the opposite is occurring. Those records include murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.

Records show that the five year period including 2004 through 2008 was the highest in violent crimes on record with 1.6% increase over the average of ten years including 1999 through 2008. Then, the two year period of 2007 and 2008 showed a decrease of 1.9%. The preliminary figures for 2009 were not available for the full year but the first 6 months of the year showed a decrease in violent crimes of 4.4% of the same period in 2008.

An example of this strange phenomenon is Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham is ranked number seven from the highest violent crime, per capita, of municipalities in the nation. Unemployment in Alabama was 11% in December 2009. In January 2010, it was 11.7% with some areas as high as 19.5%. One usually expects robbery, and even murder, to increase sharply when many are unemployed. But, so far, this has not been the case.

Overall crimes in Birmingham dropped by 10% in 2009. Violent crimes were down in each category. Murder dropped by 21%, robberies 23%, rape 7%, aggravated assault 4%, larceny-theft 10% and automobile theft 26%. Quite an impressive drop. Whether or not the economy affected the change is questionable. Many credit the current chief of police with the majority of the change.

A. C. Roper became the chief of police near the end of 2007. He asked for, an received, as much freedom to implement new procedures as possible. The mayor and councilmen agreed to stay out of the way so long as the department was properly run and progress made towards their high crime rate. Chief Roper and his men began heavy concentration towards the high crime areas and also worked with citizens of those areas to help and cooperate in their efforts.

His strategy obviously has helped a great deal and his goal is to show even lower cases during 2010. All sources agree their crime rate is unacceptably high.