Chief: Crime is down, but unlocked cars lead to thefts

ORANGE — Crime overall in town has gone down over the last 20 years in keeping with the national trend, Police Chief Robert Gagne said, but there were spikes in a few categories from 2017 to 2018, including larceny, burglary and auto theft, according to the FBI’s uniform crime report.

In discussing the statistics, Gagne said, “criminal behavior is very complex,” and one has “to be careful not to draw conclusions from short-term data.”

Larcenies reported were 353 in 2017 and 385 in 2018, and he said much of that is from thefts from inside cars that are not locked, as well as shoplifting, most of it on the busy Boston Post Road corridor. He said shoplifting numbers fluctuate and part of the increase could be from a poor economy and the opioid crisis.

Auto theft also went up from 17 in 2017 to 37 in 2018, and that also stems largely from the unlocked cars, Gagne said.

“That’s a problem in the entire state,” Gagne said, stemming from juveniles coming in from other municipalities.

Gagne said the Police Department has made announcements on Facebook and any other way they can to stress that people should lock their cars, not leave valuables in them and not leave the keys in the car.

Gagne said the thieves don’t even have to break into the cars because they’re unlocked and starting them is no problem when the keys are left in the ignition or car.

Leaving cars locked would be a deterrent because having to break a window would make noise and increase the fear of being caught, Gagne said.

“I can’t stress how much we need the public’s help,” he said.

The burglary number for 2018 was 52, an increase from 20 in 2017, but Gagne said the number of 20 was an anomaly — the lowest number ever recorded in the history of reporting to the FBI. He said 52 burglaries is closer to the average number in a year.

Violent crime is down overall, much fewer cases than between the late 1970s and 1990, he said.

There were no homicides in Orange in 2017 or 2018; there was one arson in 2017 and none in 2018; there was one aggravated assault in each of the comparison years; five sexual assaults in 2017, compared to three in 2018; five robberies in 2017 and four in 2018.

He said the violent and other crime numbers from the late 1970s through 1990 were high nationwide and Orange followed suit with crime going down in the early 1990s. To put it into perspective, he said, in 1978, there were 197 burglaries — the highest number ever — versus 52 in 2018.

Gagne said it’s complex, but part of the reason violent crime declined in the 1990s is that the use of crack cocaine decreased and smarter ways of policing went into effect. There is no easy explanation, he said. “The last decade is some of the lowest numbers we’ve seen,” Gagne said.