Crime Declines in State, Lungren Says

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren announced Thursday that major crime in California dropped 8.2% during the first six months of 1997, compared to the same period last year, with some noticeable downward spikes, such as a 60% decline in homicides in Long Beach.

“Crime in California continues to drop dramatically in virtually every category, building on the already historic declines we’ve seen in the last three years,” Lungren told reporters in Long Beach.

“Now we are at levels that we last saw in 1968,” he said.

Statewide, Lungren said the first six months of 1997 saw homicides fall 18.3% and robberies go down 14%. Motor vehicle thefts fell 9.3%, while burglaries dropped 8.5% and aggravated assaults 2.9%, he reported. There was no percentage change in the 3,249 forcible rapes between the first six months of 1997 and 1996.

Lungren, an all-but-announced Republican candidate for governor in 1998, attributed the drop to tougher laws; more aggressive policing by local law enforcement agencies; and the 148,000 inmates, many of them career criminals, he said, being held in California prisons.

Experts, however, have noted that states without laws such as California’s three-strikes statute have also experienced sharp drops in crime. They cite factors such as demographic changes, a graying of the population and a decline in the number of teenagers and young adults in age groups prone to commit crimes. Others have suggested that an improving economy is putting more people to work.

The statistics represent a preliminary report compiled for the FBI based on jurisdictions with populations of 100,000 or more. The attorney general’s office estimates that the 70 jurisdictions analyzed account for 65% of the crime reported in California.

Lungren’s office cautioned that the reports were preliminary snapshots for the first six months of 1997, and could contain errors. The attorney general’s office bases its review on reports filed by local police agencies. Often, there are corrections. On Thursday, the office acknowledged mistakes in reports on the number of homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults in Simi Valley and Oxnard. The Times found another mistake in Thousand Oaks, where a homicide wasn’t counted.

Lungren said the reports were generally reliable and could be counted on to stand up, year after year.

If the trends continue, Lungren said, “California will experience a more than 40% drop in the homicide rate, and a 30% drop in the overall crime rate over the last four years--the largest four-year drop in crime in the history of this state, or at least since we’ve been keeping statistics.”

Translating the four-year drop into numbers of actual crimes, Lungren said “more than 3,800 Californians will be alive who would not have been alive if the homicide rate of 1993 had continued unabated.”

Continuing to broadly interpret the statistics, Lungren said that over the last four years the decline in crime represents 750,000 fewer crimes committed.

Providing a likely glimpse of next year’s campaign, Lungren used the report to criticize unnamed members of the Legislature who have questioned the correlation between the drop in crime and tougher laws and more police on the streets, both of which he supports.

“People often ask me, ‘Are we getting our money from the law enforcement system?’ Look at those figures,” he told reporters. “Some in Sacramento say we can’t afford to continue to pay for prisons and jails and cops and prosecutors, and I ask them, “Would they give up three-quarters of a million new victims because they think we ought to put our money somewhere else?’ ”

Calling the drop in crime statewide “staggering,” the attorney general said the 60% drop in homicides in Long Beach “is even more astounding.”

“Long Beach has been targeting gang activity and career criminals. Well, it works, folks. It works,” he said.

Joining Lungren at the news conference were Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill and Police Chief Robert M. Luman.

O’Neill said, “Public safety is the No. 1 priority in our city.”

Luman attributed the drop in homicides and other crime to a community policing unit beefed up by 150 new officers over the last three years; business, residential and apartment Neighborhood Watch programs; and high-profile tactics such as “zero tolerance” sweeps of areas with gang activity.

Part of Long Beach’s success is also due to the fact that it started with a relatively high crime rate, police officials acknowledged.

In other numbers, Lungren said Long Beach showed a 7.9% decline in violent crimes--homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Los Angeles showed a 12.2% decline in violent crimes, the attorney general said. In jurisdictions covered by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he said, violent crime was down 10.3% overall and homicides were down 32.7%. Statewide, violent crimes dropped 7.1%

* ARRESTS DECLINE: Juvenile arrests for violent crimes dropped a dramatic 9.2% in 1996. A25