HAMPTON RELEASES MIDYEAR CRIME STATS — WITH VIRUS ASTERISK
HAMPTON — In certain neighborhoods, home burglaries and aggravated assaults are trending downward for the first half of 2020, Hampton police said, but homicides are holding steady compared to previous years.
The report released last week included nonviolent, violent and property offenses, as defined by the FBI, from 2015 through the first half of 2020. It draws data focused on specific neighborhoods selected for review under the Hampton’s “safe and clean” program.
Looking at year-to-year comparisons, most trends on violent and nonviolent crimes are going down from historical highs in 2017. Looking at a fiscal year comparison, which reflects periods from July 1 to June 30, violent crimes and burglaries show a steadier uptick. Other police charts with cumulative data over the past five years show small fluctuations.
Hampton police have not factored in the effects of the pandemic and may have more accurate numbers next year, said
Assistant Chief Orrin Gallop, who gave the presentation to City Council about the statistics on July 8.
“It’s kind of hard for us to analyze … once we get more data, from how it looks when more things open up, we don’t know if the decreases are because of COVID or it could be the other way around,” Gallop said. “You may see some of these increases also because while businesses were closed, some of the criminal activity did not stop.”
The city’s safe and clean program started in 2013 for different departments to collaborate on ways to reduce crime and blight in areas considered more at risk. Among those neighborhoods are South Wythe, which includes sections of Kecoughtan Road, Phoebus, the Shell Road corridor, Olde Hampton and Old Northampton and sections near the road formerly called Magruder Boulevard.
Overall, at least in the safe and clean focused areas, some of the greatest decreases came in nonviolent property offenses. Citywide, Hampton has had some increases with violent offenses, such as homicides, rape and robbery.
There were a few outliers, Gallop notes. Rape and sexual assault cases spiked in 2019, mainly because cases from years ago were reported, he said. Also, aggravated assaults are down in 2020, but homicides are up, which usually tend to correlate. For 2020 through June 30, Hampton police listed 16 homicides.
“This year we have like a reverse. We have a drop in the … aggravated assaults, in our safe and clean areas, but we also seeing and increases in homicides,” Gallop said. “That is mainly because of some of the shootings that we have, they’ve been more targeted, where the people who are doing the shooting, they are pretty set in the location and were more targeted in who they shoot.”
Larceny, burglaries and car thefts also are down from 2017, which Gallop attributes to better educating car owners on prevention techniques.
Residential burglaries are down, and commercial burglaries are a little higher, but the city is poised for 2020 to see some of its lowest numbers in property offenses since the safe and clean program began, he added.
Mayor Donnie Tuck asked to see the statistics for the entire city as well as the specific areas shown. Others wanted to see more information on how to measure if the safe and clean program was effective.
“It would be helpful to look at that … what kinds of progress have we made since we kicked off the program in 2013?” Vice Mayor Jimmy Gray said. “Crime is down … murder rate is down in safe and clean areas, up in other areas … have we run out all the crime in the safe clean areas and sent it other areas in the city? How are we trending overall with this program …?”
Councilwoman Eleanor Brown suggested that data could be placed side by side to show what percentages of various types of crime, such as larcenies, are taking place in the clean and safe areas versus citywide.
Councilwoman Chris Snead said, because the effects of the pandemic on crime are still pending, if she were a resident reading it, she would “would immediately discount most of January to June.”
“I just think we need to be more cautious … on touting this as going to be a low numbers (year) because this is a very atypical year with so many unknowns,” Snead said. “I personally would be leery thinking that this is going to trend lower.”