Is Crime Spiking?

As GM mentioned earlier, there was a reported rape of a Georgetown University student two blocks from campus Friday night. While apparently not related, it was followed close behind by a reported assault and attempted robbery in the East Village. And that’s not all. A whole bunch of cars along 28th st. and R St. were broken into Tuesday night. So GM has to ask: are we in the middle of a summer crime wave? GM explores the evidence after the jump:

Each one of these crimes has recent antecedents. The sexual predator is strongly suspected of being the so-called (and unfortunately named) “Georgetown Cuddler” (although that has not been confirmed). The woman assaulted at 31st and Q may well have been attacked by the same man who assaulted a woman on 30th and Q in June. Finally, the string of car break-ins Tuesday night mirrors an identical strike on June 26th.

So have a small group of criminals decided to periodically come back to the scene of the crime and repeat their actions? That would seem to be the case.

But as to the larger question of whether crime is spiking, it’s necessary to look at the stats and compare them year-to-date from 2009 to similar year-to-date 2008:

1/1/08 – 7/14/08                1/1/09 – 7/14/09                     +/- %

Theft                                    289                                          303                                     4.84
Theft f/ Auto                    98                                             87                                      -11.22
Robbery                             24                                             24                                       0.00
Sexual Aslt                        2                                                2                                          0.00
Burglary                             38                                             43                                       13.16
Aslt Dead. Weap              19                                             17                                      -10.53

So according to these stats, it looks like this year’s stats are pretty close to last year’s. Even with the string of car break-ins, the theft from auto number is down over 10% (although these stats don’t have Tuesday night’s crime stats, so when you incorporate those, it will probably be about even for the year). Burglaries are up 13% but assaults with a deadly weapon are down 10%. Robberies and sexual assaults are exactly even (although the numbers don’t incorporate Glover Park, where there have been several more sexual assaults recently).

But what about just looking at the summer numbers? Are we in the middle of a typical summer crime spike, or is it worse this year? Here are those numbers:

6/1/08 – 7/14/08               6/1/09 – 7/14/09                      +/-%

Theft                                  68                                              69                                         1.47
Theft f/ Auto                  17                                              26                                         52.94
Robbery                           6                                                 4                                          -33.33
Sexual Aslt                      0                                                 1                                          +inf.
Burglary                           7                                                 9                                          28.57
Aslt Dead. Weap           4                                                  3                                          -25.00

According to these numbers, despite the large percentage swings most of the stats in terms of real numbers have remained roughly level for summer 2009 versus summer 2008. Only car break-ins seem to have genuinely spiked this summer versus last (and again, these numbers don’t incorporate Tuesday night’s spree, so the spike is even larger).

In fact, it doesn’t look like overall crime is spiking this month even versus the rest of this year. Look at the total crime stats by month (each month averaged out to 30 day-base stats):

The most crime-ridden month for Georgetown this year was February, not June or July.

Are these stats cold comfort to the victims of the recent crimes? Absolutely. Should you remain as vigilant as always? Of course. But it appears that you should not panic. While some of the recent crimes have been particularly brazen and have occurred close together in time, there is not a significant overall increase in crime in our neighborhood.