Phoenix’s violent crime rate fell in 2014 following three consecutive years of increases, according to an update from police that was presented to a city council subcommittee on Wednesday.
Karen Kontak, head of the Phoenix Police Department’s Crime Analysis and Research Unit, presented the information to the Public Safety and Veterans Subcommittee inside Phoenix City Hall.
“Violent crimes (homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults) are down 7.9 percent from last year,” Kontak said. “What that equates to is about 750 less violent crime victims each month.”
Property crimes that make up the majority of crime in the city — like burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson — were down 5.2 percent, she said.
“That ends up being 3,100 less victims each year in terms of property crimes,” Kontak said. “So that’s a very positive theme for our citizens.”
She said as a city, the crime rate was down across the board, with property crime being at its lowest rate in the last 30 years.
During the meeting, three requests passed without question from the committee including application approvals for the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response program grant; the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area funds in an amount not to exceed $2 million; and grant funds under the 2015 Smart Policing Initiative grant for the U.S. Department of Justice.
District 8 councilwoman Kate Gallego mentioned last year’s talk about grant proposals for funding administered by the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety.
“(Last year) we talked about how we have many individuals from the refugee community who didn’t have some of the traffic background,” Gallego said. “(They) also face challenges like being unable to pay for car seats.”
Gallego asked Phoenix Chief of Police Joseph Yahner if there was any way there could be opportunities to reach out and address those issues through existing grants.
“Absolutely, we’ve located all the refugee communities and we’ll be able to canvas those apartments,” said Yahner, who was named the permanent police chief earlier that day. “We will set up car seat installation locations in different council districts and, again, we’ll look at target populations and then who needs the most of them.”
District 5 councilman Michael Nowakowski asked for an update about the restructuring of precincts.
“Do we have any data (showing) if that’s being effective, if that’s working out, or if our response times are quicker?” asked Nowakowski.
Yahner said the restructuring of the precincts has not been in place long enough to definitively decide. He said he believed the new precincts would fare just fine.
“The reason we did that was to deploy our officers more efficiently in the right areas of the city based on workload and response times,” he said.
Contact the reporter at jaling1@asu.edu.
