Politics & Government

Lemon Grove Domestic Violence Cases See Sharp Increase

The increase was reported in a San Diego Association of Governments study released today.

Domestic violence crimes saw a 79 percent hike in Lemon Grove from 2008 to 2012.

During a one-year period from 2011 to 2012, domestic violence crimes increased 32 percent, according to a San Diego Association of Governments study released today. Domestic violence crimes totaled 101 in 2008, 137 in 2011, and 181 in 2012.

The total number of crimes from 2008 to 2012 decreased in the city by 30 percent, according to the data.  From 2011 to 2012, crime saw a slight bump of 3 percent.

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Violent crimes decreased 10 percent during the four-year period and remained flat from 2011 to 2012. As for property crimes, those decreased 35 percent from 2008 to 2012 and increased 4 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to the study. Property crimes include burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

As for solving violent crimes, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department had a clearance rate of 50 percent in 2012, a small decrease from 52 percent in 2011.

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A clearance means at least one person has been arrested and charged with an offense.

The department had a tougher time solving property crimes. The department's clearance rate was 28 percent in 2012, up from 18 percent in 2011.

How much did Lemon Grove residents and businesses lose in 2012?

According to the study, the dollar value of losses in 2012 was $1.15 million in 2012—a 14 percent increase from the $1 million in 2011 and a steep 30 percent decline from the $1.63 million of 2008.

But the Lemon Grove Sheriff's reported recovering $383,081 in property in 2012, compared with $333,714 in 2011 and $558,257 in 2008.

The propety recovery rate was 33 percent in both 2011 and 2012.

SANDAG reported that in 2012, the violent and property crime rates in the San Diego region both increased for the first time since 2001 and 2003, respectively.

“However, it is important to note that across the seven crime categories, most of the reported numbers were still among the lowest in the past 30 years,” said the report written by Cynthia Burke, director of SANDAG’s Criminal Justice Research Division.

“The number of homicides increased the most, compared to 2011, with preliminary motive information suggesting this was due at least in part to gang-related crime.”

SANDAG also highlighted these figures:

  • The region had 107 homicides in 2012, a 30 percent increase from 2011 and the largest one-year jump of the four violent crimes.
  • The number of robberies reported across the region rose 5 percent, with increases in all of the location types, except bank robberies, which fell 22 percent from 2011 to 2012.
  • While the number of robberies with a firearm rose only 1 percent over the past year, the number of aggravated assaults with a firearm increased by 27 percent.
  • A greater number of residential burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts were reported in 2012, compared to 2011. The only exception was nonresidential burglaries, which fell 5 percent.
  • Over the past 10 years, the percent of property recovered fell from 46 percent to 21 percent, possibly reflecting advancements in technology and the ease of disposing of stolen property, priorities of law enforcement to focus on violent crime with limited available resources, as well as changes in how this information is compiled and reported.
  • At midyear 2012, national violent and property crime rates were also up, compared to 2011, but to a lesser degree than in the San Diego region.

“Increases were greater in the Western region of the United States, but large California cities did not have increases consistently larger than other Western cities,” SANDAG said.


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