Spokane7
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December 18, 2011 in City
Violent crime declines in Spokane County
Homicides an aberration; property crime rate high
The last three weeks have been among the deadliest in Spokane this year.
But the three people killed in what investigators ruled were homicides are an exception to a trend of fewer violent crimes, both locally and nationally.
Like most areas of the United States, Spokane County is experiencing a drop in violent crime that law enforcement officials and criminologists can’t definitively explain.
According to data collected by the FBI from local law enforcement agencies, Spokane County as a whole recorded 3.51 violent crimes per 1,000 citizens in 2010 – the fewest since 1985 – and officials expect 2011 figures to look much the same.
Violent crimes taking place in the city of Spokane increased slightly in 2010 – 6.25 crimes per 1,000 citizens compared to 6.18 in 2009 – but the numbers still are a sharp drop from the high rate of violent crimes reported throughout the 1990s. Just three murders have been reported in the city of Spokane this year, down from an average of about 10 per year.
“We’re not really sure why it’s happening, but we’ll take it,” Carly Cortright, a strategic analyst with the Spokane Police Department, said of the overall drop.
In 1994, the city of Spokane reported 9.1 violent crimes per 1,000 citizens. By 2002, it had dropped to 6.7. It’s fluctuated since then but has never come close to the averages seen in the 1990s.
Property crime hasn’t followed the same trend. While down nationally, theft, burglary and other crimes involving property in Spokane County jumped from 43 per 1,000 citizens in 2009 to 51 in 2010 – the highest in five years. The rate is still far below the peak in the 1990s, however; in 1994, the county averaged 62 property crimes per 1,000 citizens.
“I think you’re incredibly safe in Spokane from being a victim of violent crime,” said Cortright, who has compared Spokane to 42 other cities of similar population sizes.
But, she said, “I think you stand a very high chance of being a victim of a vehicle prowler.”
Preliminary 2011 statistics for the city of Spokane, which will be submitted to the FBI, show violent crime remaining steady. Vehicle theft is down 19 percent this year, Cortright said, and overall property crime was below average until a surge in the last two months. But property crime still greatly outnumbers the national average.
Cortright attributes the city’s high property crime rate to the presence of instant report-takers on the Crime Check phone line. Other cities don’t have such a service. “If you call in it doesn’t matter what it is. Someone took your lawn gnome? We take a report on it,” she said.
For the officers in the field, a falling crime rate hasn’t made much difference in their workloads. The number of commissioned officers is budgeted at 290 – the lowest since 2006 and the same number budgeted in 1999. Calls for service to the Spokane Police Department have remained steady. The department averaged 300 calls per day in October.
“I know from my interactions with officers and detectives that they are as busy and caseloads remain high,” said Tom Michaud, crime analyst.
While the rate of violent crimes – murder, robbery, assault and rape – has declined in the last decade, the number of murders in Spokane has never followed much of a trend line.
There have been six murders reported in Spokane County – three of those in Spokane – so far this year; 12 in 2010; and 10 in 2009. In 2002, 20 murders were reported; the next year there were 10. The homicide rate, which includes vehicle homicides and manslaughter, is higher.
Zachary Hays, a criminologist at Washington State University in Pullman, suggests several reasons for the overall decline in violent crime. Baby boomers are getting older and are “aged out of crime,” Hays said. Also, the judicial system continues to incarcerate people, and cities like Spokane focus on locking up repeat offenders.
“It’s not that we’re taking everybody off the streets. It’s that the people who are most likely to commit crime are ending up back in prison,” Hays said. “They’re getting put back in prison a lot more because of smaller and smaller technical violations.”
Cortright said a factor in the number of homicides is how many people are saved by officers providing medical care at the crime scene. Police have responded to shootings and stabbings in which the victim likely would have bled to death at the scene had officers not applied a clotting agent to their wounds.
Hays, at WSU, believes the decrease in crime isn’t exceptional – it’s the high crime rate of the 1980s and 1990s, driven by the early days of the war on drugs and the rise of street gangs, that was the exception.
“We were so violent in the ’80s and ’90s that it just couldn’t sustain itself,” Hays said.
Human trafficking suspects released 
brianrbreen on December 18 at 10:20 a.m.
@Spokane_Citizen
“While I personally don’t find police and fire department manpower reductions all that frightening, the general public has always demonstrated that they find such reductions rather terrifying. Maybe that’s changed, but I doubt it.”
Somewhat surprisingly you and I may agree that reductions may not be all that frightening with respect to the police department. If the public or the media had access to some statistical analysis of exactly how the staffing allocation is being utilized today, compared to the years during which the crime rate was considerably higher.
I’m wondering if, aside from the Marine Corps, during the course of your public service experience whether or not you recall ever having a department head not express the dire need for increased staffing.
I have some questions that I feel need to be answered before I personally can form a fright factor opinion. Perhaps you could comment.
It has been a given for sometime that the crime rate nationally and in Spokane has been on the decline, so from a strategic and tactical standpoint how has that affected the SPD?
I could be wrong, but as I recall during the 1980-90s the staffing level of commissioned officers was somewhere around 260-270 give or take (it could have been less or more, I don’t remember). That was during a time when the department had a fairly good CFS (Calls for Service) response time compared to the national average. It was also at a time when the department managed to staff a General Detectives Division, which included Detectives, assigned to Burglary, Auto Theft, Checks, and Fraud. There was a Crimes Against Persons Unit. A Major Crimes Unit. A Drugs, Vice, and Gambling Unit (SIU), as well as other administrative assignments including Intelligence for Detective staffing.
Now I don’t remember what the CFS load was in 80-90s for the Patrol Division and I’m not real sure what it is today but wouldn’t it be interesting to have a comparison between the high crime years and now, just to get an idea of what the difference might be and make a judgment regarding current staffing levels. I know those statistics are available or at least they should be. They were complied and reported in the SPD’s Annual Report for each year.
Wouldn’t it also be interesting to go back and take a good look at the caseload stats per Detective in the Investigative Division and draw comparisons with the high crime periods and today? My recollection is that the average caseload during the high crime periods in the General Detective Division was around 25-30 cases per month. The caseload in the Crimes Against Persons Unit was approximately the same, and the Major Crimes Unit somewhere between 10-15 cases per month. The SIU Unit, which included drugs vice and gambling fluctuated depending upon the investigative focus at the time. Speaking of gambling, I wonder if the State still provides the city with money to fund non-exsistent gambling investigations.
I could be all wet here, but I would think if I were a member of an incoming administration, a new council member, or just a citizen “Yahoo” these are some of things I’d be interested in knowing, especially if I were involved in contract negotiations which could end up requiring staff reductions of commissioned staff at the SPD.
I might add I’d really like to see a comparison of civilian staffing levels, then and now.
What say you sir?
de3 on December 18 at 10:24 a.m.
Crime Check was shut down from 2005 to 2008 and property crime reports fell by by about half. After they restarted Crime Check, property crime reports starting going up again.
brianrbreen on December 18 at 10:51 a.m.
@de3
I’m very aware of that. But I don’t believe it was in half. Even if you were to attribute a three year UCR decline to a crime check anomaly don’t the stats still reflect a down turn?
During 2005-2008 how did the crime check anomaly affect the CFS load if at all? How did the anomaly affect case management stats for that period? Was the monthly caseload consistent even though fewer reports were coming into the system? If in fact that was the case one would assume that those crimes that were not reported would not have met assignment criteria, although they most assuredly would have aided in the analytical product from Crime Analysis.
The_Seer on December 18 at 11:01 a.m.
Brian: I’m pretty sure we’re safe from the dangers of illegal gambling in Spokane, unless you are talking about hundred million dollar deals involving H.U.D. funding for poor neighborhoods. With stakes like those it’s “All in!”
Crime across the U.S has declined almost every year since the 18th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It’s not a coincidence.
But the police state has expanded. Shouldn’t the opposite have occurred?
GDodd on December 18 at 11:05 a.m.
Sense the cops quit shooting on every call things have gotten better.
brianrbreen on December 18 at 11:09 a.m.
@The_Seer
My only point there was that the SPD and the SCSO used to receive state money to fund “gambling enforcement”. I don’t know whether they still do. Someone had to sit down and calculate the amount of time members of the department spent per shift, per person on the enforcement of gambling laws. Was it a joke? ….Absolutely!
brianrbreen on December 18 at 11:21 a.m.
@The_Seer
BTW; As of today you are into me for two grand plus the vig. I’ll give you until one month after the final cut on your production then I want my money. Otherwise you will be talking to Vito.
If I were you kid I’d get off your EWU kick, or at least push off with GU depending on the game.
Shadedmuse on December 18 at 11:42 a.m.
Yeah right this story is BS, Spokane is the most violent city in United States.
de3 on December 18 at 11:52 a.m.
Brian,
It’s on page 11 of the SPD’s own report
http://www.spokanepolice.org/documents/State%20of%20SPD%20Staffing.pdf
Went from a peak of about 18,000 in 2004 to about 10,000 to 11,000 in 2008. Then it started climbing again when Crime check came back.
Dazzeetrader11 on December 18 at 12:05 p.m.
Has the definition of “violent crime” been changed? I remember Mayor Daley fired all the rat counters in Chicago…and the rat count declined. He declared a victory….we all knew better.
brianrbreen on December 18 at 12:57 p.m.
@de3
I went through the “Executive Summary” some time ago, and noticed quite a few things, which I won’t get into here. But I did notice that the stats only go back to 1999, which I assume is because of a data storage and retrieval issue, among other things, and did not got back to periods very high in UCR data. I didn’t spend the time to go back into the UCR data prior to 1999 but the sight linked below gives you some idea of the UCR data back several years.
I did note this in the summary, which from my perspective, is telling regarding the summary itself. Having done a few. I know exactly what an “Executive Summary” is all about.
“The last time we had fewer than 272 officers was 1994. At the beginning of 1995 there were 256 officers with an additional 20 recruits that year. Staffing of commissioned officers peaked in 2004 at 308 officers. In essence, while Spokane has continued to grow in size (both in population and land area, due to annexations), its police force is shrinking.)”
Note the staffing levels listed and the years for the levels in the quote above, and then notice how the good old “get em line” is thrown in with no correlating data.
Whether or not the projections in the Summary are valid or not…who knows… they could be right on. But in most cases projections developed from a probability analysis are a crapshoot.
This summary doesn’t address a lot of the things I would like to know, nor do I feel it would help the public with Spokan_Citizen’s fright factor thing, nor to any extent does it deal with civilian staffing.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting a staff reduction is in order. I’m just trying to decide whether I might agree with some other old jarhead.
For me anyway when I read an “Executive Summary” I always start with the conclusion so I can figure out beforehand the intent. Here is a quote from the conclusion. I’ll leave the intent element up to you.
“We are asking for 46 officers, 22 of those positions immediately, in order to prevent Spokane from retreating from what it has accomplished over the last decade. This equates to approximately $2.2 million in the short term to assist in Spokane’s recovery. Combined with the remaining 24 positions and 9.5 civilian positions to restore the Spokane Police Department to a basic agency is an approximate $5 million annual outlay. However, this is not solely a law enforcement expenditure. It is an investment in Spokane’s long-term future. The time to act is now”
http://data.spokesman.com/annual-crime-reports/
zelda on December 18 at 3:14 p.m.
@Brian — Not criticizing your analyses or comments, but just want to ask the question to see what your thoughts are. Can’t we assume that there have been some efficiency gains over the years in the police forces owing to better communication equipment and methods? So maybe it doesn’t take as many cops as it used to in some types of cases.
Overall, I’d say these year-to-year comparisons are extremely difficult to analyze because, as you said, the city of Spokane is larger because of land annexation and population growth in general.
But one area of LE and sociology that has a field day with this stuff are the “broken glass” authors and those inclined to Freakonomics.
One crime stat — car prowling — can be easily reduced if people would learn to stop leaving stuff in clear view in their parked vehicles and lock the doors. But that would probably just makes burglary and forced-entry stats go up. It’s whack-a-mole given the horrible economy.
Also, the theft stats will see a steeper rise once people figure out that posting info. on the police department’s Facebook wall is not the proper way to report a crime.
D Statler on December 18 at 4:19 p.m.
Maybe our prosecutors can start prosecuting white collar crime now that they have some extra time.
brianrbreen on December 18 at 4:54 p.m.
@Zelda
I would hope there have been some efficiency gains, and I would think there have been. But my questions as a citizen is how have those gains have been utilized. Obviously gains in data storage and retrieval are a light year ahead of what it was, but how is it being used. Not long ago the SPD and SCSO were sold a bill of goods regarding an expensive RMS system, you might remember that. As I understand it that system is out and something new is maybe on its way. What that is, I have no idea. I am somewhat familiar with the AIM system but I’m wondering whether or not the way they are collecting and disseminating that data is actually useful from a management standpoint and more importantly from the public’s standpoint.
When I look at the AIM data, there are a lot of things I can’t figure out, I don’t think it is just me…. but maybe it is. My John Q would have a better grasp of it than I do.
As far as the Investigative Division is concerned, I can’t figure out why DV case data would be mixed with Property Crimes data, and more recently they have added Fraud data into that mix. Makes no sense to me.
The only AIM data that I can find dealing with individual caseload is in the “Special Victims Unit” and I believe the caseload stats are a reporting requirement to the State.
Other then that I can’t find any. When I look at the caseload stats in the SVU, I don’t know the staffing level in that unit, or any unit for that matter, but a total of 7 cases per month per Detective seems pretty low to me when they used to carry around 25 a month.
I guess my point is how do we really know that the resources we are paying for are utilized the way they should be. I guess we just have to rely on our city leaders to make that judgment, and in their judgment it was necessary to disband the Property Crimes Unit. So statistically it must have been the right thing do…I guess?
I do know we have several of our employees assigned to various Federal and State task forces, just don’t know how many and that is a whole other issue.
I agree public awareness, and caution on the part of us citizens is really important.
The information regarding land annexation and population growth was a quote from the executive summary de3 linked. But I personally think year-by-year comparisons are helpful from the standpoint of resource allocation and staffing levels.
brianrbreen on December 19 at 10:57 a.m.
@Zelda
I went back and looked again…. bottom line…Based on the available data I wouldn’t be frightened with a reduction as long as whoever comes in gets rid of all the fluff. Eliminates some of these “I wana work plain clothes” units. Makes supervisors and administrators accountable for dealing with the media whether they like it, or the media likes it or not. Brings back SOME of the staff that has been farmed out to the feds and the state. Gets some people off their ass and make them start carrying reasonable caseloads. Starts putting people on the street demonstrating a community oriented omni presence. Gets all these various units that are spread out all over the place back under one roof so they can be managed more effectively (hell two or three could even share a desk, it ain’t that bad). That’s just a start.
The only fright I have is that we are going to get stuck with some self-serving idiot big Kahuna who is afraid to stand up to the ingrained culture and the politicians.
Shelala on December 19 at 12:00 p.m.
Over simplification, but if the citizens want to feel safe, I’d prefer not to address caseloads and staffing levels until we rid the SPD of those officers that have pretty much publicly snubbed their collective noses at the citizens of Spokane. They continue to inflame the public’s sensibilities on the KT FB page and on media blogs, all the while smugly proclaiming to detest the media. They proffer their misguided opinions seemingly comfortable and secure in maintaining their jobs and positions at public expense. I think it a bit too presumptuous for them to believe they will still have a job in law enforcement to attempt to defend. I find it offensive to hear a PSA on the television by a supporter of a convicted felon telling me to buckle up my child in a car seat. There are a lot of capable replacements out there with their head on straight eager to fill these ranks. After some housecleaning, let’s fill the SPD to capacity with good officers. Someone explain to me what benefit is derived from allowing them to remain on the force in consideration of the liability risk they pose?
brianrbreen on December 19 at 12:08 p.m.
@Shelala
Somehow I thought you would say that. Not that I disagree, just not sure how to legally and fairly accomplish that.
Not for you Shelala someone else.
I may well be an idiot, but yes, I know all about the $1,800,000.00 expenditure for the building at 1427 W. Gardner. That’s not what I was talking about.
Shelala on December 19 at 12:21 p.m.
@Brian
Yep, I can flush em out, but don’t hold the gun to shoot them down.I’ll think about this waste of payroll every time I see a snow plow miss my street, watch my lawn go brown or gift wrap my garbage. BTW, I see Sgt King can indeed write judging by his recent letter to the editor. Too bad he can’t write down the figures for the sales and donations from the donations and wristband sales of the FB page he administers.
arroyoribera on January 08 at 6:58 p.m.
Shelala, What is that Facebook page that Sgt. King administers?