Data: Crime trends in CT remain in sharp decline
Study indicates overall rate of violent offenses in Connecticut less than half national average
Violent crime and property crime declined slightly during 2021 while the number of arrests rose and admissions to state jails and prisons increased compared to the pandemic year of 2020, according to an analysis of the the latest trends in Connecticut’s justice system.
But compared to 10 years ago, the state is still far below the key metrics on crime rates and incarceration levels within the Department of Correction, while overall, Connecticut’s violent crime rate was less than half the national rate.
During a morning meeting Thursday of the state’s
Criminal Justice Policy Advisory Commission, officials in the state Office of Policy and Management said that reported violent crime in 2021 was down 43 percent since 2012 and reported property crime — mostly burglaries — fell by 29 percent during that 10-year period.
While admissions to state correction facilities rose 41 percent last year compared to the height of the pandemic in 2020, it was still 44 percent lower than in 2013. Violent crime was down 9 percent in 2021, compared to 2020; and property crime declined 2 percent compared to 2020.
During a virtual meeting of the commission, Marc Pelka, the OPM’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning said the report, mandated by a 2021 state law, is an important tool for policy makers at a time when the height of the pandemic unveiled harsh facts about public reaction amid the virus’s stress.
With 147 murders in 2020, Connecticut saw the number rise to 150 in 2021, but the rate statewide was still 40 percent below the national average, Pelka said. “As we all know, one murder is too many,” Pelka told the commission in what was the second annual report on state trends. There was a 5 percent increase in murders nationally, in that period.
“That number, I think, and the challenges in the pandemic, especially beginning in 2020, really focused people on what are the contributors to murder and what are the ways we can drive down violent crime,” Pelka said, stressing that the state Department of Public Health has created an office focusing on gun-violence reduction and prevention.
But violent crime varies from city-to-city and even among neighborhoods. The state murder rate is 4.22 per 100,000, while the national rate is estimated at 6.9 per 100,000. While Bridgeport, Stamford and Waterbury experienced fewer murders in 2021 than 2020, both Hartford and New Haven reported 10-year highs.
“We remain 40 percent below the U.S. rate, and the increase for our state was smaller than the U.S. rate, but this is the most-serious of all the violent crimes,” Pelka said, pointing to New Haven and Hartford as opportunities to strengthen partnerships with those communities’ anti-crime efforts, including innovative
In 2021 there were 5,954 reported violent crimes in the state, compared to 10,361 in 2012 and 8,198 in 2017. There were 61,071 property crimes in 2021 and 77,101 in 2012.
ways to use federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
He noted in the current calendar year, New Haven police report a reduction of more than 60 percent for homicide victims, along with a slight increase in non-fatal shootings, while Hartford has seen an increase in homicides along with a slight reduction in nonfatal shootings. “Each jurisdiction is maybe facing similar challenges but there are unique respects also to the matters that are driving it,” Pelka said, applauding local strategies and investments in gun-tracing task forces.
In 2021 there were 5,954 reported violent crimes in the state, compared to 10,361 in 2012 and 8,198 in 2017. There were 61,071 property crimes in 2021 and 77,101 in 2012.
“Criminal justice system trends, led by a reduction in crime, have contracted over the last decade,” Pelka said. “Like other states, aligned with the onset of the pandemic beginning in approximately March of 2020, the contractions in Connecticut’s criminal justice system accelerated. It did not involve sort of a sharp upward or downward curve in an opposite direction. Once those changes occurred beginning in 2020, there has been a gradual regression to the mean, to pre-pandemic levels.”
Along with the 43 percent drop in violent crime over the last decade, it has fallen 27 percent in the last five years and gives Connecticut half the national rate. Property crime, including burglaries and motor vehicle thefts, has fallen at a rate similar to national trends. “A smaller proportion of the property-crime rate are motor vehicle thefts,” Pelka said. “Overall, in the last decade, they are up, but they decreased 11 percent from 2020 to 2021.”
Kevin Neary, policy development coordinator for the OPM, noted that the pandemic seemed to have caused an increase in motor vehicle arrests of 12 percent compared to the prior year.
“We all understand that with the pandemic and the significant kind of impacts — the general driving behavior that we have all lived through the last couple of years — that now that we are sort of, I won’t say totally in a post-pandemic phase, but are sort of moving beyond the initial COVID impacts and the community and folks are out driving at higher volumes again, it’s reasonable that we would then sort of see that growth and rebound in motor vehicle arrests,” Neary said.
Judge Patrick Carroll, who sits on the commission in his role as the state’s chief court administrator, noted that the trends’ report was a collaborative effort among a variety of state agencies, from the Board of Pardons and Parole, to the Judicial Branch, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and the Department of Correction. During a recent meeting of the National Conference of Chief Court Administrators, Carroll received an award for statistical reporting.