Crime is certainly in the news lately, but are crime incidents going up or down in Olmsted County so far this year? We can get some idea by looking at the number of calls for service for January last year, and compare that to January this year.
I chose nineteen different calls for service categories, and summed up how many happened in January 2008, and compared that number to January 2009. This includes the Rochester Police Department and the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Department (excluding duplicates when they collaborated on the same case). The graph below represents the percentage change in calls from 2008 to 2009. A number below zero is the percentage drop in calls, and a number above zero is the percentage increase in calls for that particular category.
Overall, the trend seems to be a downward shift in calls from last year. Motor vehicle thefts are down 47.5%. Burglaries, assaults, and thefts as well are all down a marginal amount.
What was quite surprising though was the large increase in calls regarding child abuse and child neglect. Looking at the numbers, there are a much smaller amount of calls for those two categories, so an increase of just a handful ends up to be a fairly large percentage. Still, I hope that statistic does not represent a trend in our community. Here are the specific call counts for each category, and their corresponding percentages.
| Comparing Jan ‘08 to Jan ‘09 - Calls for Service | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Jan-08 | Jan-09 | Percent Difference |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 40 | 21 | -47.5% |
| Trespass | 60 | 41 | -31.7% |
| Burglary | 52 | 39 | -25.0% |
| Noise Violation | 115 | 90 | -21.7% |
| Domestic Problem | 54 | 46 | -14.8% |
| Forgery | 14 | 12 | -14.3% |
| Criminal Damage to Property | 78 | 67 | -14.1% |
| Assault | 48 | 42 | -12.5% |
| Theft | 281 | 247 | -12.1% |
| Disorderly Conduct | 105 | 95 | -9.5% |
| Controlled Substances | 44 | 41 | -6.8% |
| Dispute | 48 | 45 | -6.3% |
| Robbery | 2 | 2 | 0.0% |
| Driving Under the Influence | 66 | 71 | 7.6% |
| Intoxicated Person | 79 | 85 | 7.6% |
| Suspicious Circumstances | 268 | 292 | 9.0% |
| Sexual Assault | 14 | 19 | 35.7% |
| Child Neglect | 7 | 15 | 114.3% |
| Child Abuse | 3 | 9 | 200.0% |
Note: Soon, anyone will be able to run some reports such as right here on Rochester911.com. The reporting page is currently being developed so that everyone will be able to create charts and tables of crime statistics, either on particular categories, or to gather statistics for their neighborhood.
Yummy Excel chart
Yes, of all the Microsoft products, I think Excel is the most worthwhile
Such a handy little tool.