Let’s celebrate the FBI statistics showing violent crime down almost 15 percent in Sacramento. But let’s not rest on the good news. After spending most of 2008 campaigning for the Mayor’s office on a public safety platform, I’ve been gratified in 2009 to see significant drops in most crime categories. Murder rates are down 42 percent. Assaults are down 13 percent. Robberies fell 11 percent. And car thefts dropped 16 percent.
Remarkable numbers, especially when you consider the budgetary challenges faced by the Sacramento Police Department and our neighbor law-enforcement agencies.
But positive stats shouldn’t suggest we’ve turned the corner on crime. Those numbers can go negative very quickly.
The keys are smart policing and awareness by every resident and visitor to Sacramento.
Smart policing comes with bait cars to catch auto thieves. It comes from motorcycle officers on traffic patrol in high burglary areas. It comes from gang outreach to prevent retaliation murders.
We win the battle against crime when we keep an eye on our neighborhoods and make sure we work together to keep our city safe.
Police officers can’t fight crime alone. They need help from community members who do the little things, like alerting a neighbor when a garage door is left open and reporting suspicious cars and characters.
My goal for the coming year is to put more police officers on the streets of Sacramento. We were fortunate in 2009 to swear in 10 new officers and graduate a full class from the police academy last week despite severe budget cuts. My office has worked hard to help secure grants for more officers and security cameras.
But even with more police officers, Sacramento can’t hold the line against crime without support from every resident.
The city deserves credit for a 15 percent drop in crime. Let’s make the numbers even more positive in 2010.
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