INSIDE the Lakeland Police Department

April 2009 UCR Data Released

The UCR data for Apr 2009 has been released, which shows overall crime for the first four months of this year is virtually unchanged from the same period last year. Violent crime is up a bit (10%) and property crime is down (0.5%).

Leading the increase in violent crime is Forcible Sex offenses. Robberies are down this year compared to last. April was a busy month for burglaries as these crimes seemed to explode in our community. Several key arrests since then are expected to lower this number when May's data is tallied.

The department continues our weekly crime meetings to review emerging crime trends and develop strategies to address hot spot areas. We are aggressively putting resources where we see problems developing just as fast as possible. Given the challenges of our current economy and any impact that might have on criminal activity, the numbers are not as bad as we feared they could be.

Our best defense against crime is the continued diligence of the community to report suspicious activity to us immediately. Anyone seeing something out of the ordinary or what you deem to be suspicious should call the Lakeland Police Department immediately at 863-834-6900. You can remain anonymous when reporting suspicious activity.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

March Crime Data Released

The Lakeland Police Department released March 2009 crime data from the Uniform Crime Report. Overall year-to-date crime in 2009 is down 5% compared to the same period in 2008 and down 8.5% compared to 2007.

As we noted in previous blog postings, burglaries increased during March (and part of April, too), which resulted in a 2.5% year-to-date increase from last year. Violent crime is up a modest 3.3% this year, with robberies showing a 23% decrease.

The complete March UCR report can be found on our website.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere 

February 2009 UCR Report Released

We just released our 2009 UCR crime data for February. The initial year to date figures show overall crime is down in 2009 compared to the first two months of 2008. We will certainly welcome good news like this anytime!

Statistics being what they are, any fluctuation in the numbers during the early part of the year can show big percentage changes when the actual increase or decrease is only a few crimes. For instance, robbery is down 13.3% when the actual count is only 4 less robbery crimes this year compared to last.

Still, we look at long and short range trends to gauge where our hot spots are and where we need to deploy our resources to meeting changing trends. It's good to see a downward change, particularly in tough economic times.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lakeland Crime Down in 2008

We completed our annual Uniform Crime Report for 2008 and are pleased to report overall crime was down 3% from the previous year AND both violent crimes and property crimes declined as well.

Violent crime decreased by 11% last year and property crime was down just over 2%. These are significant results during our current economic challenges.

To anyone who was a victim of a crime last year, it was a bad year. The numbers show 6.17 people out of 100 residents were victimized last year, according to the crime numbers compared to our population. That figure is down from 6.39 the year before. Just over five people out of 100 were the victim of a property crime and less than one out of 100 was the victim of a violent crime. We think those numbers are pretty good overall.

While the overall news is good, we analyzed the data in great detail to develop a deep understanding of crime trends. Homicides increased from 6 to 10 in 2008. We also had a spike in violent crime late in the year where a gun was the weapon used to commit the offense. That resulted in a 9% increase in gun-related violence. Suffice to say we are getting aggressive in dealing with this violent crime trend, and results for 2009 are looking promising so far in the new year.

So what caused the drop in crime? That is always a question we get asked by the media and the community during neighborhood meetings. It is difficult to point to a single cause for the reduction just as it is a challenge to point out a single reason when crime is up. Here are some thoughts though that may explain the drop in overall property and violent crime.

• The community takes credit first and foremost for doing their part to keep our overall quality of life high. This has a direct impact on the environmental conditions that give rise to crime in the first place.
• Weekly crime meetings and daily crime briefings give us the opportunity to analyze crime trends in real time. This emphasis on identifying hot spots and then deploying resources quickly to deal with these locations has proven to be an effective strategy.
• A drop in the value of recycled metal, such as copper, makes stealing this commodity a less lucrative endeavor now. We saw a marked reduction in the theft of copper when its value dropped.

Crime is a social phenomenon that occurs for many reasons. It is the challenge of a free society to create a community where environmental conditions and the overall quality of life help prevent crime from occurring in the first place. The police also need to be ready to respond whenever a crime occurs. We view our responsibility to not only respond to and investigate crime after it occurs but to also help prevent crime from happening in the first place.

Working together, Lakeland had a pretty good year last year.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Understanding Crime: The Impact of Victim Behavior

Every morning when I come to work there awaits for me a daily report of significant crimes from the day before. This report gives us a synopsis of these crimes, which in turn allows our commanders to focus resources on emerging hot spots.

This morning's report contained an entry that caught my eye. I thought it might be of some interest to the public because it further illustrates the impact of a crime victim's behavior on their victimization. My edits for clarity are in parentheses.

"On 02/02/09 at 1935 hours (7:35 PM), victim reported he was inside an unknown room (of a local motel) buying crack (cocaine) for the second time in the day when the 2 B/M occupants battered him and stole $60."

Further investigation revealed the victim was robbed of his money when he pulled out his wallet to purchase the cocaine and the two suspects noticed he had a considerable amount of money. They battered him numerous times, possible with a baseball bat, before taking his money.

Every victim deserves our best investigative efforts to solve their crime. And while it can be argued this victim needs some type of drug counseling or rehabilitation, we have to ask how many resources should be allocated to this case when the victim put himself in the position to be robbed?

While the public can get the false perception of high crime rates if you just look at raw numbers, we believe it is important to dig deeper and understand the root causes of crime, such as this case where the victim bears a tremendous responsibility for being victimized in the first place. We will forever carry this UCR crime statistic as a personal robbery regardless of the victim's own criminal behavior in the first place. 

In these tight budget times with too few resources at our disposal, our detective bureau will prioritize the crimes based on a variety of solvability factors and do what we can to clear our cases. I just wish we could not claim this crime stat because of irresponsible behavior by the "victim."

Welcome to the deeper reality of crime.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere 

Charting Crime Trends

January always brings about the publication of annual crime stats for the past year. Initial numbers are showing a slight reduction in overall crime and property crime with a little bigger decrease in violent crime. We are in the process of auditing our UCR data in preparation for publishing the 2008 crime stats later this month.

In the mean time, I recently looked over the Weekly Crime Trend Charts for 2006 - 2008, a tool that we use on a weekly basis to identify emerging crime trends. For a "data geek" like me, these charts are a quick visual overview of crime numbers in comparison to previous years.

I share these charts with you so you can see how we monitor crime trends every week. Let me know if there is any interest in publishing these charts on a more frequent basis.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lakeland Police Release September 2008 UCR Data Report

The crime data for the September_2008_UCR Report have been released. Overall year-to-date crime is down 5% from the same period last year. Violent crime is down 22% and property crime is down 3%.

Our web site contains crime data from previous years, too. If you are interested in learning more about the UCR crime reporting system, visit the FBI's UCR web page.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Daily Crime Maps - They're Here!

I received an e-mail last night in which the author asked where the weekly crime maps had gone. It is nice to hear people look for these maps, and so here is the rest of the story...

We are now up and running with daily crime maps via SpotCrime.com. Here is a link to Lakeland's maps.

Our goal is to use this technology which now allows viewers to customize date ranges, time frames, and specific crime categories for what meets their individual needs. Rather than focus on one week at a time, viewers can look at one day or multiple date ranges (say the last month rather than the last week) to see broader trends. There is no need to wait for the weekly map to be posted. You can see the list of crime calls from yesterday - that's how fast we can get the data uploaded and available to you.

You can also sign up to receive crime alerts via e-mail. It is our hope this enhanced access to crime data will be much better than our previous weekly maps and more empowering to residents.

The other advantage to this new system is it is much less manpower intensive on us. In my book, better service to the community that requires less work by us is a win-win for all!

Please take a moment to visit the new crime maps on SpotCrime and give me your feedback. You may leave a comment here, send me an e-mail , or call me at the office (863-834-8989). Let us know what you think of the new maps!

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Weekly Crime Analysis Report for September 22 - 28, 2008

Here is the weekly crime analysis report for the period of September 22 - 28, 2008. All three categories of burglary (business, residential, and vehicle) declined citywide during the weekly reporting period, as did stolen vehicles. The number of theft calls increased sharply for some reason. We are examining these calls to look for trends.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lakeland Police Are Now On Twitter

After conducting a bit of research and discovering a few other police departments around the country are beginning to use Twitter, I decided we would take the leap and join. You can find us on Twitter under our account name LakelandPD.

Be patient as we look for creative ways to use this form of communication technology to keep the public informed of events, emergencies, and general news around the Lakeland Police Department.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere