Jackson Free Press

Read the report. 05022011-05082011.pdf

Violent crime is down citywide by 20.2 percent and overall crime is down by 5 percent since last year, the Jackson Police Department reported yesterday.

The department's weekly crime overview report for the week ending May 8 shows that, compared to this time last year, all city precincts are reporting drops in crime. Precinct 1 reported a 4.7 percent decrease in crime from this time last year, Precinct 2 reported a 7.2 percent decrease in crime, Precinct 3 is down by 8.7 percent, and Precinct 4 is down by 0.8 percent.

The city reported a total of 218 property crimes for the same week, which is a 9.2 percent drop from last year. The highest occurrences of property crime are house burglaries and auto burglaries, with 80 and 78 respective reports last week.. Overall, auto burglaries are down by 8.9 percent compared to last year, and house burglaries are up by 18.7 percent.

Violent crimes have decreased as a whole. The city reported a total of 11 homicides for 2011, compared to 16 at this point last year. Aggravated assault shows the only violent crime increase with 20 this week compared to 12 last week and nine at this time last year.

Jackson Police Department Assistant Chief Lee Vance said the numbers are a result of residents and officers working together.

"This is part of the overall strategy that (Police Chief) Rebecca Coleman has," Vance said today. "There is cooperation between police and citizens ... and better communication in general."

Vance added that the department maps out the most problematic places in the city and targets those areas by being efficient with the department's resources.

"We are happy with the numbers," he said. "We are hoping this strategy continues to work and downward trends continue."

Last month, the city announced a partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to streamline federal gun violations and give police access to ATF's National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, a database containing bullet, casing and projectile information.

Vance said today that it's too early for the partnership to directly affect the city's crime rate.

Previous Comments

ID

163590

Comment

Congratulations to Chief Coleman, Asst. Chief, Lee Vance and all of the Officers and support staff that gave this City the kind of attention and hard work that caused the significant decrease in crime. It is my hope that we can build on this positive message and that the next evaluation will find our crime stats continuing this decline.

Author

justjess

Date

2011-05-19T16:28:48-06:00

ID

163591

Comment

Didn't we have more than 50 murders a year during the Melton mayoral tenure? I remember it spiked over the time he held office over the years before he was elected. Need to check specifics, though.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2011-05-19T17:05:16-06:00

ID

163593

Comment

Checking to see if the Clarion-Ledger has reported this. *sound of whistling and foot tapping* What a surprise, they actually did!

Author

golden eagle

Date

2011-05-19T20:41:20-06:00

ID

163594

Comment

If I remember correctly, crime rates went down under Johnson, went up under Melton (who challenged Johnson to do something about the crime in Jackson), and now have gone down again under Johnson. Hmmm...

Author

Tre

Date

2011-05-20T08:16:57-06:00

ID

163596

Comment

That is certainly true for the murder rate, Tre. We'll request the overall numbers for the last several years for some context. Of course, Melton had no real interest in fighting crime, and his police chief was useless and there to let him do whatever he wanted, including playing with guns and night-riding around the city, for the most part socializing. I know, I was there. And it was a situation exactly created by dumb crime sensationalism and "rankings" like CQ Press/Morgan Quitno. These kinds of things play to the ignorant, and make it very easy for unsavory people to hide what they want to do as long as they squawk about crime and work up people's fear. With any luck, after being played for such fools, more people in Jackson have figured it out now. A prime example, of course, was the Two Lakes contingent (the Better Jackson PAC) trying to hawk CQ Press/MQ rankings to get Crisler in there so he would rubberstamp their development plan. That was marginally better than Melton's motives, I suppose, but our electorate really needs to be smarter and not buy this ranking B.S. that the FBI warns not to take seriously (and, of course, the rankings twist the FBI's numbers, so they certainly are the ones who would know). Wise up, folks, and be ready for the next round of dumbass politicians trying to scare you into voting against your best interests.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2011-05-20T08:49:20-06:00

ID

163598

Comment

It's all that white flight. Those damned white people go, the crime goes. Probably also a delayed effect of Fearless Frank and his random road blocks between drinking and swimming with little boy thug wanna bes. Or maybe it's just someone straightened up all that evil crime data that's specifically made up just to make Jackson Mississippi look bad. Mean ole crime rankings. They just don't understand that sometimes people murdered here are just barely murdered so it shouldn't count as much.

Author

Alex0393

Date

2011-05-21T10:52:10-06:00