Crimes climb slightly in 2003

Andrew Edwards

Crime in the city jumped slightly in 2003, according to FBI

statistics, an increase that police attribute largely to past

underreporting of crimes.

The FBI’s annual report, “Crime in the United States,” compiled

crime statistics from police agencies across the country. Across the

United States, officials concluded that crime as a whole dropped from

2002 to 2003. The FBI reported a 3% dip in violent crime and a

fractional decrease in property crimes.

Crimes monitored by the report from year to year are murder,

forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, auto

theft and arson.

A spike in the number of reported aggravated assaults accounted

for the largest single increase among the crimes monitored in

Huntington Beach, jumping from 216 in 2002 to 263 attacks last year.

However, Police Chief Ken Small accounted for the jump by saying

that the department incorrectly counted assaults in past years.

“We actually discovered last year, midyear, a reporting error in

how we were reporting aggravated assaults,” Small said.

In figures from 2002 and before, he said, aggravated assaults with

multiple victims were recorded as one crime, when the correct method

is to count attacks on each victim as separate crimes.

In 2003, Huntington Beach had a low violent-crime rate compared to

other large Orange County cities. There were 209.87 violent crimes

per 100,000 residents reported in Huntington Beach during 2003, a

rate that was exceeded by Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton and Santa

Ana.

Irvine and Orange both had lower violent-crime rates. In Irvine,

there were only 87.9 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

Though the FBI reported a dip in violent crime this time, Small

said many police expect the national trend will reverse.

“There’s been a decline over the years, but now it’s bottomed out,

and we’ve been anticipating an increase in crime,” Small said.

The reason for the expected increase, Small said, is a demographic

shift in which men aged 15 to the mid-20s will make up a larger share

of the population. Men in this age group typically commit more crimes

than the rest of the population.

Huntington Beach police are not planning to change law enforcement

strategies to adjust to the expected rise in crime, Small said,

adding that the department’s main problem right now is understaffing.

The department has 207 officers on the force, 13 fewer than the

city needs.

“Our biggest challenge is the staffing shortage we have right now,

not that we’re attributing the increase in crime to our staffing,”

Small said.

The Police Department was hit the second hardest in 2003 when the

city laid off 37 employees, including six police employees. The

Public Works Department took the toughest blow, losing 26 people.

Restoring the police and public works departments’ rosters to full

strength should be one of the city’s priorities, Mayor Cathy Green

said.

“What I would really like is for those two departments to get

replacements before anyone else,” Green said.