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Uploaded: Monday, January 21, 2013, 11:05 AM
Report: Home burglaries up 52 percent from 2011
Palo Alto crime statistics for 2012 show increase in property crimes, little change in violent crimes
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 | Residential burglaries in Palo Alto jumped 52 percent in 2012, from 149 to 226, according to an annual crime-statistics report released by the Palo Alto Police Department.
While there was significant increase in property crimes, the number of violent crimes was relatively unchanged.
There were no murders in 2012 or 2011, according to the report, and robberies were about even, with one additional incident last year, totaling 26. Aggravated assaults were down from 35 in 2011 to 23 in 2012.
The department also reported an increase in larceny, which include auto burglary, and in auto thefts.
Police Chief Dennis Burns said during a recent Human Relations Commission meeting that the department has responded to the rise in property crimes by putting six additional staff on burglary detail.
As of Dec. 20, police had arrested 38 people for residential burglary, according to Lt. Zach Perron.
The 2012 report was sent to the California Department of Justice and will be included in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual national Uniform Crime Report.
Click the image on the left for a chart of the 2012 Palo Alto crime statistics, provided by the police department. — Palo Alto Online staff Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Question, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 12:36 pm [Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
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Posted by Ann, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 12:57 pm No violent crimes in the past two years. How about East Palo Alto??? It amazes me the difference in numbers in two neibohooding cities.
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Posted by Wayne Martin, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 1:43 pm
The display of the 2012 crime data against only the 2011 as a baseline is not at all helpful. The PA Police/FBI have data going back twenty years—showing definite trends that are quite different that those suggested by comparison of only two years of data.
The Police web-site, not yet updated with the most current data, provides a more reasonable five-year review of criminal activity in Palo Alto--
Palo Alto Part I Crime Data:
Web Link
What’s interesting is that the data in this Weekly article is not characterized in the same way as the FBI Part I Crime Data on the police web-site. Arson is not provided in this report, whereas it is listed on the Part I reports. The crimes of “elder abuse”, “child abuse” and “financial crimes” are not list on the police web-site, so we don’t have ready access to previous year’s data.
The totals for the comparable data leave us with Part I crimes in Palo Alto for 2012 at/about 1479, which is 150 more than 2011. The main difference between 2011 and 2012, as anyone reading the papers knows, is an increase in property-related crimes (burglaries, mostly).
There is much data missing from this report, however. The most obvious missing data point is the “closure rates” for each of these crime categories. It would be surprising if the Palo Alto Police were able to close 15% of these cases. Unfortunately, this police department, and the City Council, have never shown much interest in revealing this data to the public. So, we tare left with just a peek at how much crime going on in our town, or how much of it has been dealt with effectively by the police.
Review of the Part I crime data over a twenty-year period indicates that there has been more-or-less a 30% reduction in crime in all categories, save homicides/rapes--which are generally very small in mumber, compared to other crime types.
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Posted by Duh, a resident of the Leland Manor/Garland Drive neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 3:02 pm No kidding burglaries are up. Several of my neighbors have been burglarized since 2010, one of them twice. We have a large dog, which I think is the only reason we have remained untouched, other than some minor vandalism.
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Posted by Town SquareER, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 8:18 pm Can Police give out the percentage of (226)burglarized houses through UNLOCKED windows/doors? 50% or 100%?
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Posted by Nayeli, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jan 21, 2013 at 9:52 pm Our recycle container was recently "tagged" with gang graffiti. This is disturbing.
Are there any local statistics that would show the demographics detailing those who are victims and those who commit the crimes?
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Posted by musical, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Jan 22, 2013 at 12:03 am 38 arrests for residential burglary. Seems like one could burglarize, I don't know, maybe 5 or 10 homes before getting caught? So maybe the 38 arrests are a significant number of the perpetrators.
Stemming the auto break-ins looks pretty hopeless. I'll bet most of those car doors/windows are locked, as I would bet for the burglarized houses. Many older house locks are not difficult to pick, but I'll guess most are just pried open.
Yes, I can only guess. Maybe we'll get some definitive follow up answers here.
I do see plenty of graffiti, but can't differentiate personal tags from gang tags. Most of it is cleaned up pretty quickly, except for all the signatures scratched into windows along University. And how did the front door of the Apple Store get shattered?
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Posted by Mike, a resident of the University South neighborhood, on Jan 22, 2013 at 4:22 pm > And how did the front door of the Apple Store get shattered?
Someone was probably trying to sync their iPod to their iTunes. Or someone was trying to move their iTunes library from their old computer to their new one. What a pain!
:-P
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