The Dexter Leader
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Crime on the rise
Police: Poor economy the major factor in crime rate increase
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: April 10, 2008
It seems like a matter of common sense: When the economy goes bad, more people turn to crime.
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But local law enforcement agencies have hard numbers to back up that assumption.
"During tough economic times, you find desperate people out there committing crimes," said Washtenaw County Sheriff Dan Minzey.
Those thoughts are echoed by Chelsea Police Chief Ed Toth Jr.
"With the economy bad, people are trying to survive and provide for their families, and sometimes they make bad choices," he said.
Statistics from the three agencies responsible for law enforcement in this area - Chelsea Police, Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department and Michigan State Police - seem to indicate definite trends from 2005 to 2007.
The MSP's Criminal Justice Information Center is responsible for compiling data from every police force in Michigan into the annual Uniform Crime Report, showing the number of offenses reported by individual agencies and counties.
They are broken down into categories, such as so-called "index crimes" - the major felonies of murder, criminal sexual conduct, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson.
The reports also contain "non-index" crimes, the felonies and misdemeanors of negligent manslaughter, non-aggravated assault, forgery and counterfeiting, fraud, embezzlement, stolen property, vandalism, weapons violations, prostitution, gambling, sex offenses, narcotics violations, family and children offenses, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, liquor law violations, disorderly conduct and more.
The reports for 1997 through 2006 can be viewed on the State Police Web site (www.michigan.gov/msp) under "Publications, Forms and Statistics."
Although Chelsea's 2007 numbers are available now, county and state statistics for 2007 are not yet available.
"We can't release them to the public until they are all compiled, which probably won't be until September or October, said CJIC spokeswoman Wendy Easterbrook.
Chelsea tracked 14 categories of offenses from 2005 to 2007.
Minor increases were reported in criminal sexual conduct and robbery from '06 to '07, but significant increases were seen during that time for domestic assault (from 8 to 18), assault and battery (from 10 to 18), closed-account checks (from 4 to 17), heroin possession (0 to 4) and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (28 to 34).
"I'm pretty confident in the 2007 numbers - they are accurate," Toth said, explaining that the department was adopting a new incident reporting system.
"Crime is up and down; sometimes you have a year that you have an increase for whatever reason," he added.
"The closed-account checks - you can attribute that to the bad economy."
The 2005 and 2006 statistics for Michigan State Police and the Sheriff's Department point out some troubling trends.
MSP responded to one homicide in 2006 in its patrol area within the county, as opposed to none in 2005.
Larcenies were up by 40, narcotics violations increased by 30, aggravated assaults were up nine, arsons increased by three, robberies went up two and fraud was up by one.
The Sheriff's Department, on the other hand, reported decreases in almost every category except vandalism (up 134 to 407), robbery (up three to 80) and arson (up two to 21).
That's not to say the numbers are falling to "acceptable" levels, however.
"I hear the circuit court judges saying they don't ever remember their dockets being as busy as they are now," Minzey said.
"I'm still seeing a high number of property crimes, shootings, stabbings; all of which gives me a sense that there is still a high level of serious crime being committed."
Minzey said a poor economy leads to a downward spiral of increased criminal activity and a lack of police officers to combat it.
One of the first things a municipality will cut in a budget shortfall is police service, Minzey contends.
"There are 1,600 or 1,700 fewer police officers in the state now than just a few years ago," he said.
"You begin to get out of proactive mode, and you find yourself in the reaction mode.
"Criminal activity is on the rise, without a doubt, and tough economic times are pushing us to a position of having fewer officers out there," the sheriff added.
That's where having a little help from the public can come in handy.
"You can gauge it to the number of officers or to unemployment, but I feel the major difference is lack of community involvement - people need to get to know their neighbors," said Lt. Ann McCaffery, commander of the MSP Ypsilanti Post.
McCaffery attributes that to an overall change in society.
With both parents working outside the home and having children and extended family to worry about, she said, "caring about the neighbors is just not as high a priority."
The thing is, it doesn't become a priority until perhaps something bad happens to someone you know, and it takes very little effort to change that.
"People are extremely busy; they don't get to know their neighbors but still they know the cars that belong there," McCaffery said. "People have to be engaged and involved in their surroundings.
"You don't have to go to the level of a neighborhood watch," she added.
"The community has kind of pulled away instead of pulling forward."
Toth expressed gratitude that the people of Chelsea are still engaged enough in the community to be a big help to his officers.
"Without the community being involved we could not solve a lot of cases," Toth said. "When you build that public trust there's a give and take of information and the public is willing to get involved.
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