Sorry to hear that this type of crime has hit close to home. I have been the victim of a couple of thefts over the past decade or so and it definitely is not a good feeling. Still I have the feeling that Police do what they reasonably can to keep us safe, being respectful of the fact that they can't be everywhere even if you were to triple the amount of officers on duty.
Whenever a question or suggestion on this kind of topic comes up, my first instinct is to look for data on which to base a discussion. I did a quick look at Crimereports.com and unfortunately the data they put out only goes back six months, but for interest’s sake this looks to be the number of reported thefts by month so far this year… keeping in mind that June isn’t quite over yet:
January: 71
February: 62
March: 66
April: 81
May: 89
June (to date): 86
Could use more years’ data to truly draw conclusions, but does appear to be an uptick for April-ish that held through May and June that at first blush I’d want to attribute to nicer weather as much as anything. Prev years’ data would really help in seeing just how strong that relationship might be, but I imagine for some folks any increase during the warmer weather months could potentially give the perception of an overall increase.
For a bit broader of a picture, some data from the previous five years' annual Police reports of thefts over the entire year of that report…..
2014
Theft of vehicle: 93
Theft over $5000: 8
Theft under $5000: 1173
Total crimes against property, including the above: 2496
2013
Theft of vehicle: 82
Theft over $5000: 7
Theft under $5000: 826
Total crimes against property, including the above: 2152
2012
Theft of vehicle: 63
Theft over $5000: 7
Theft under $5000: 903
Total crimes against property, including the above: 2283
2011
Theft of vehicle: 81
Theft over $5000: 13
Theft under $5000: 846
Total crimes against property, including the above: 2052
2010
Theft of vehicle: 114
Theft over $5000: 10
Theft under $5000: 1004
Total crimes against property, including the above: 2504
As far as whether or not theft is on the rise, it would be hard to ignore that last year was easily the worst year for reported thefts out of the last five years…. and the increase from any of the previous three years is actually quite notable. Somewhere in there one needs to consider that our population has been on the rise and with that you could expect more incidents. But even still, 2014 looks like a particularly bad year for reported theft unless there’s some kind of change in reporting that could account for some difference. When you look at it in terms of overall crimes against property the difference isnt quite as pronounced and was actually less in 2014 than 2010, but still a good amount higher than 2011, 2012 or 2013.
To really work toward an answer to whether or not theft is on the rise or whether 2014 was an anomaly it would be helpful to have last year’s data to compare the first six months of each year…. but unfortunately doesn’t look like that data is available unless someone else has had more luck than me?
Edited by Adam, 2015-06-26 23:42:13