Edition:
November 6, 2009
Public Notices - DBA Info • CONTACT
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Canyon Lake Police Department
As I prepare this month’s note to you, I realize we are rapidly approaching the end of the year. Time is coming for families to come together for the holidays; we will all be heading out to do a little extra shopping, some of it at night.
As we make our way to the malls and shopping centers, let’s take a little extra time to prepare ourselves to be mindful of our surroundings, parking in well-lit areas, locking our cars and hiding those items that may tempt someone to steal. This is all common sense stuff, right? Well, for some reason, we tend to forget; we make excuses like, “It won’t happen to me.” “I will only be in there a minute.” We all do this, myself included.
So why am I making it a point to caution you? You may be thinking to yourself that the news and some of my recent notes to you have reported that crime remains down. This is true. In fact, the crime in the Perris Station area is down more than eight percent year-to-date. This is good news considering we experienced a reduction of more than 10 percent last year. Let me share a little more. It is one thing to talk about crime at the aggregate or cumulative level, and it is something else when you break it down.
Some of you may already know this, but for those who didn’t know, in my spare time (whatever that means), I teach at Loma Linda University. I am on the faculty for the Department of Social Work and Social Ecology, teaching graduate students. Recently, my “Crime and Society” class and I were discussing crime trends, which led to our exploration of the details (i.e., individual types of crime) versus the sum of all crime categories. Here, I want to go one step further with you and discuss individual crime types by area.
Sometimes we get so used to hearing and seeing crime statistics in their aggregate form; we forget crime does not occur equally in space (i.e., across all areas of our cities or communities) or by type of crime. As you have become familiar with, the communities served out of the Perris Station are divided into “zones” or “beats.” For the most part, each city and the unincorporated areas are broken-down into multiple zones for patrol deployment, which allows for more effective response to calls. Additionally, with such a division of geographical areas, we are able to track the varying or unique crime trends and develop customized responses for each area.
Earlier, I said that crime is down more than eight percent for the Perris Station jurisdiction. Interestingly, with the exception of homicide (six thus far this year versus four in the same time frame for last year), all other crime categories are down as well. Good news, right? Well, let’s take a closer look. When we examine crime by category within an individual zone, we find that some of the zones have experienced some increases. With rare exceptions, those zones experiencing some crime category increases are primarily in the property crimes categories (e.g., theft, burglary, vehicle theft). Getting a little closer to the detail, we find that many of these incidents occurred in shopping centers. Now you are thinking, “What are you saying?”
Well, what I’m saying is that we all need to be a little more diligent in our daily routines when it comes to crimes of opportunity. That’s right, crimes of opportunity. You see, most of these incidents of property crimes were simply too good of an opportunity for the criminal to pass up. Let’s take the necessary steps to reduce those opportunities through our own personal vigilance toward reducing crime.
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