Analyzing Crime By Pinpointing Type And Location, Statistics On Crime Enable Police To Better Allocate Their Time And Resources

Every broken windshield, every stolen radio, every slashed tire and every garage burglary reported to the Spokane Police Department is coded, compiled and crunched.

From homicides to dog bites, more than 200 reports a day come into the Crime Analysis Section, get classified and then distributed in reports to North Side neighborhood police substations and Block Watch coordinators.

The statistics have become a force in the success of Spokane’s community oriented policing (COPS) operations in West Central, Hillyard, Shadle Park, Emerson-Garfield, North Hill and Nevada-Lidgerwood.

The statistics and the increasing ability of law enforcement to crunch numbers is changing the way police and citizen volunteers allocate time and resources.

“Once it comes down to a two- or three-block area and you’re talking about a specific neighborhood, people sit up and take notice,” said Lt. Bruce Roberts, director of Spokane police management operations.

When the North Side Voice ran a listing of crimes by neighborhoods last month, Deborah Wittwer, coordinator for Neva-Wood COPS, got an immediate reaction.

“I got a call and it got (the caller) to come to a meeting,” Wittwer said. “When it happens to them they want to be a part of it and stop it.”

That has already happened in the Emerson-Garfield neighborhood, where residents saw a steadily increasing number of burglaries. The result was a neighborhood forum at North Central High School last month and a promise by many to get involved.

“In Emerson-Garfield we watched those numbers escalate and we held a community forum,” said Cheryl Steele, liaison between the police department and the neighborhood substations. “We’re empowering them to make decisions and solve the problems themselves.”

Officer Tim Conley, a patrolman assigned to Glover Middle School, said statistics have served to reassure senior citizens who, fearful of crime, sometimes hesitate to leave home alone.

Statistics show that theft, burglary and vandalism are a problem in many North Side neighborhoods, but the chances of getting physically assaulted, raped or injured are relatively small.

“A lot of people fear being hurt, fear being assaulted,” said Conley. “But when you look at the numbers, the chances are pretty low.

“The fear of crime is almost as dangerous as the crime itself.”

The Crime Analysis Unit can not only break down specific crimes by neighborhood, but can look at individual blocks or other areas, such as schools, parks and parking lots.

One report compiled by Crime Analysis documents malicious mischief and burglary around Spokane’s schools. Another lists all the reported crimes at parking lots.

Others break down crime by neighborhood and type of occurrence.

Among the tidbits:

As far as neighborhoods around high schools, the blocks around Rogers have the most burglaries, while the areas abound North Central and Jantsch alternative school have the most robberies.

The Lewis and Clark area on the South Side has the most cases of combined crime and suspicious activity.

Commercial robberies are highest downtown and in the neighborhoods that line Division: Emerson-Garfield and NevadaLidgerwood.

In all of 1994, person-to-person robberies were quite low in all areas except downtown, which had reported about 11 a month.

Hillyard, Emerson-Garfield and Nevada-Lidgerwood all had more than 100 garage burglaries in 1994. Shiloh Hills had 15, West Central 29 and Indian Trail 42.

Reports last year showed an increase in break-ins where offenders loaded stolen goods into the victim’s own vehicle, then backed it out of the driveway and escaped.

“Neighbors saw a car leaving and assumed it was the residents leaving,” said Roberts. “It wasn’t; it was a burglar. We told people to keep the extra keys to the car somewhere beside the hook by the door,” said Roberts.

When reports showed a large number of domestic violence cases at a string of apartment buildings on Nevada and Magnesium, neighborhood volunteers organized a Block Watch effort inside the buildings, and the numbers immediately declined.

In parts of northeast Spokane, statistics indicated a large number of burglaries in unlocked garages or homes. The area organized a program called “knock and nag” to alert homeowners of the need for precautions.

“We say that, hey, 50 percent of these burglaries are not breaking and entering, just entering,” said Steele. “We went out and told people to lock up their property. This isn’t the 1950s.”

The process of breaking the statistics down by block and neighborhood is done largely by hand with volunteer help, said Darlene Ahrendt, director of the crime analysis section.

When people report crimes with Crime Check or 911, the incidents are reviewed by a detective and then handed back to Ahrendt. Each report is read by a volunteer, then coded by the type of incident and then located on a map that places it within a fourblock area.

While most police officers might be interested only in crimes that can be solved, the Crime Analysis Unit cares about everything - things like tire slashings and window smashings as well.

Only by knowing what is going on in neighborhoods can law enforcement devise a strategy for prevention, Ahrendt said.

In its monthly parking lot analysis the unit noticed an increase in theft along the Centennial Trail. After The Spokesman-Review published an article, community volunteers offered to patrol popular trailheads starting this summer.

In the old days of policing, 90 percent of what the Crime Analysis Unit discovered would be shared with patrol officers at roll calls. Now it’s given to business groups, Block Watch leaders, COPS shops and community police volunteers.

That has made it more important than ever to report crimes to police, said Ahrendt.

“If you’re not aware of the crime, you’re not able to put a trend analysis together,” she said.

One volunteer in the unit put it another way.

“In real estate, they used to say ‘location, location location,”’ said Gordon Sinclair. “This is police work, and they say ‘community involvement, community involvement, community involvement.”’

Graphic: North Side residential burglaries