Latest crime stats show ups and downs
Police Chief Medina says ‘a lot of success inside (2023) numbers’
The Albuquerque Police Department released crime statistics for 2023 on Thursday, showing a minuscule decrease in overall property crime and a small increase in violent crime.
APD also released data showing officers made more felony arrests and wrote more traffic citations last year, while the community continued to report more crimes over the phone and online.
“I know the critics will stick to the numbers that benefit them the most, but I think most everyday citizens are going to look at the individual number categories and recognize that there was a lot of hard work put in last year by officers,” APD Chief Harold Medina said. “And there’s a lot of success ... inside of those numbers.”
The statistics — compiled using the FBI’s National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) — showed property crime has mainly leveled off since measuring large decreases from 2018 to 2020. Violent crime has ebbed and flowed in that same period, rising and falling marginally.
The data showed that, from 2022 to 2023, there was a 0.18% decrease in Crime Against Property and a 3% increase in Crime Against Person.
Individually, violent crime saw 5% increases in both aggravated and simple assault and a 9% drop in sex crimes. Homicides, which hit a record-high of 121 cases in 2022, decreased 19%, and nonfatal shootings dropped 6%.
Property crime saw its largest increase, 43%, in shoplifting, with about 2,100 more offenses reported.
APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos partly attributed the spike in shoplifting offenses to more businesses reporting the offense.
He said as part of APD’s shoplifting operations, the department sent letters to businesses and big box stores asking them to report crimes.
“If they’re not reporting them, it’s harder to investigate it,” Gallegos said. “So part of that increase is due to more reporting.”
Medina said “too many times” APD would see business owners mentioning the crimes on social media but not making a report.
“We’ve done a good job in getting them to report shoplifting,” he said. “And we will have to live with the fact that those numbers are going to skyrocket.”
Auto theft, burglary and robbery saw decreases of 13%, 16% and 41%, respectively.
The third NIBRS category, defined as Crime Against Society, saw a 49% spike, driven mainly by increases of 69%, 42% and 15% in drug offenses, trespassing and weapons violations, respectively.
Gallegos said the spike in drug offenses is due to more trafficking investigations, but also “much more aggressive” enforcement on “low-level fentanyl possession.”
Since 2018, the Crime Against Society category has skyrocketed by 136%.
APD said this is due to increased weapons offenses being counted through ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection device, with every confirmed gunshot being marked down as a violation.
Statistics also showed large jumps in APD’s felony arrests, cleared felony warrants and traffic citations with 14%, 26% and 28% increases, respectively.
Additionally, according to the data, crimes reported over the phone and online were 64% and 159% higher last year than in 2018 and 2019, respectively, when the technology was in its infancy.
Medina said they hope to see two trends continue: decreasing crime and increasing enforcement. He said some of the issues, like the underlying causes of crime, are not going to be solved by APD.
Gallegos said some of the largest crime increases, seen in drug offenses and shoplifting, often go hand in hand.
“Obviously, we know that a lot of these offenses ... those are people who go into jail (and) come right back out,” Gallegos said. “To actually make a difference, ... it’s going to take a concerted effort to address the addiction and those (issues) that’s driving this crime.”
He added, “While we’re making a lot of improvement on the enforcement side, we still have a ways to go to actually curb the problem. So that’s a huge thing that’s on our minds. And I think it was going to take the entire criminal justice system.”