Police again reported falling crime in Charlotte – this time double-digit decreases in the first two months of 2009, compared with the same period last year.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Deputy Chief Kerr Putney, who released the figures at a Tuesday news conference, said the “dramatic reduction” comes from having more officers on the street and from uptown new vigilant, almost-daily analyses of where crime is happening.
He said the total number of crimes fell 27 percent for the first two months this year compared with the same period last year. Violent crime was down 33 percent; property crime fell 26 percent.
Nearly all categories of serious crime were down by double-digit percentages.
Police crime numbers have fallen so dramatically, some residents and criminal justice officials have wondered whether the department might be counting or classifying crime differently.
Asked whether the department is counting new uptown crime differently than in the past, Putney said CMPD hasn't changed its methods.
“Our new strategy is quite aggressive. We want to be in people's faces who are committing the crime. We're not sitting back and waiting for the calls,” Putney said. “It annoys me – the implication that some of our reporting techniques have changed.”
Putney said the department has consistently followed FBI standards and definitions, which is expected of all law enforcement agencies. Putney has been with the department since 1992 and was promoted to deputy chief by former uptown Chief Darrel Stephens about a year and a half ago.
Chief Rodney Monroe has noted that 2008 began with an unusually high spike in crime – which makes this year's reported decline appear more dramatic. Also, February is traditionally Charlotte's lowest crime month.
Charlotte's crime rate per 100,000 people has generally declined from peaks in the mid-1990s.
But Putney said the numbers show real success as the department zeros in on troublemakers who plague certain charlotte north carolina neighborhoods and commit multiple new crimes.
He said 50 of these high-priority uptown suspects were targeted and have been arrested since Monroe became chief in June, helping reduce overall crime. It's part of a new CMPD push to identify and arrest chronic offenders. Police already have several hundred on a list.
Putney said the decline in crime “will start to level off” as the new lower numbers become harder to improve upon.
Putney also said that aggressively patrolling some uptown and university areas merely pushes criminals into other parts of town. He said figuring out the next territory or spillover area has been the most difficult aspect of fighting crime. “We displace some of the problem,” he said.
- Charlotte Observer