Anonymous
Source: Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is releasing the 2018 crime statistics for communities served by the Sheriff’s Office. The overall crime rate was 11% lower than in 2017, and the most serious crimes hit their lowest point in the past 10 years.
Sheriff Brown credits this continuing decline in crime to the hard work and dedication of our Sheriff’s Office team, and to the collaborative efforts that are occurring within our communities and throughout the criminal justice system in Santa Barbara.
According to Sheriff Brown,“We are incredibly fortunate to live in a community where law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders and the courts are all working collaboratively to improve public safety within our communities.” Sheriff Brown went on to state, “The work of our traditional criminal justice partners is greatly bolstered by the cooperative efforts of other county departments, as well as the many community-based organizations that work with us to enhance the safety and wellbeing of our community members.”
The Sheriff’s Office is honored to be afforded the opportunity to provide policing services for the cities of Buellton, Carpinteria, Goleta and Solvang. Our effectiveness in maintaining public safety within each of these cities is the result of ongoing collaboration with their city councils, their leadership teams, and the communities we serve.
The Sheriff’s Office compiles information about crimes occurring within the communities that are served by our organization and submits this information for inclusion within the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports system (UCR). For the purposes of the UCR system, reports are broken down into two major categories: Part 1 crimes, which are the most serious in nature, and Part 2 crimes, which includes a number of lesser criminal offenses and some juvenile status offenses. Part 1 crimes are further broken down into two subcategories: violent crimes and property crimes. Part 1 violent crimes are offenses that involve force or a threat of force and include criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Part 1 property crimes are theft related offenses that do not involve threats or force against the victim, including burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.
When compared with the previous year (2017), overall Part 1 violent crime was down by 20%, with the most significant reductions occurring in robbery (53% drop) and forcible rape (39% drop). Overall Part 1 property crime was down by 21% with the most statistically relevant reductions occurring in burglary (31% drop) and theft (20% drop). The only Part 1 crime that experienced an increase in 2018 was motor vehicle theft, which increased by 10% over the previous year.
On an overall basis, Part 2 crimes were down by 9% over the previous year. However, detailed analysis showed that some individual Part 2 crimes increased and some declined. Part 2 crime categories that experienced notable declines over the previous year included liquor law violations (40% drop), public drunkenness (34% drop) and disorderly conduct (21% drop). Statistically relevant increases included possession of stolen property (69% increase), fraud (25% increase), drug possession (25% increase) and weapons charges (13% increase). We also experienced notable increases in juvenile status offenses over the previous year.
Part 1 crime rates by jurisdiction, 2018 versus 2017:
Unincorporated areas overall: 21% decline
o 21% decline in violent crime
o 20% decline in property crime
Buellton: 44% overall decline
o 100% decline in violent crime (3 fewer)
o 41% decline in property crime
Carpinteria: 40% overall decline
o 57% decline in violent crime
o 38% decline in property crime
Goleta: 7% overall decline
o 2% increase in violent crime (1 additional)
o 9% decline in property crime
Solvang: 41% overall decline
o 14% increase in violent crime (1 additional)
o 48% decline in property crime
When a cop makes contact with a vagrant, who has multiple warrants due to not paying citations, or just deals with the same parties over and over again, they don’t report it as a crime or book at County Jail… Those contacts make up 80% of time doing police- but hey- crime is down!
Focus on “campers’ should be increased. Most of them are part of the nationwide drug addiction crisis. We, as a community, must not allow places where drug addicts are comfortable with using. Not our job to help that illegal activity. Fires started in these camps are a result of cooking their drugs. Someone clever needs to address this in new local ordinances that are tough. We’ll all pay the price if these camps are allowed to remain, especially during hot, dry, windy sundowners. Fires in these camps at those times can be the end of all of us…just one fire on the wrong day. We don’t have to be their victims. NEW BRAVE standing up to this epidemic of drug addicts sprawled in our community!
seems fabricated considering all the craziness that happens in Santa Maria and Lompoc.
Don’t support bad behavior of drug addicts. It’s not fair to us, or them. Also, zero tolerance for drug “campers” makes all of us safer. These campers are in unsafe environments. Stop ALL of them.
It is easy for the police to simply not write police reports and then claim crime was down. My Eastside neighbor sold meth for years despite my constant complaints and weekly visits from the police. Very few police reports were made there? A police officer and myself even heard a woman smoking meth while holding a baby. Never mind a police report, the officer never knocked on the door after saying CPS could not take another kid, as they were full up ?? That is when I decided to leave so called paradise for someplace where the police have not gave up on drug wars – Crime down? … Yeah sure …
Not giving Case Numbers, or doing any report at all, is a major problem. Thanks, Sea Dog. You are not alone. Many of us know about this, first-hand experiences.
This is the county; not the city. of Santa Barbara Break-in, burglary, assaults, thefts way up in my area. Vagrants moving out of the creek beds and railway tracks and into surrounding neighborhoods with each encampment removal.
Crime in Santa Barbara is NOT down.
I live out here & am privy to what 90% of the populace doesn’t see.
Crime down..My left foot!!