Crime & Safety

Serious Crime Rising in Berkeley, Chief Says

Berkeley's serious crimes are continuing to increase this year, following last year's upsurge that ended a decade of declining crime, according to Police Chief Michael Meehan.

Published Aug. 8, 2013 at 11:19 p.m., updated Aug. 9 at 9:03 p.m.

It looks like serious crime in Berkeley will show another increase this year for the second year in a row, further reversing what had been a long-term downward trend, Police Chief Michael Meehan said.

"We're up this year," Meehan said in an interview this week.

A large increase in robberies is a chief reason for the trend, he said. 

One bit of good news, he said, is that auto thefts are down, but the general direction is up for the "Part 1" or major crimes that are included in the FBI's Uniform Crime reports.

Exact figures for the first half of this year are being assembled now by the department and are expected to be presented to the City Council in September, Meehan said.

This year's trend continues the reversal that Berkeley saw beginning last year in 2012, when Part 1 crimes increased for the first time in a decade. The total had steadily decreased each year since 2002.

Part 1 crimes last year totaled 6,210, up 11.4 percent from the 2011 low of 5,572, according to the police department's crime report for 2012, delivered in February to the City Council. 

The drop in crime in the three-year period, 2009-2011, was "the biggest decrease in the history of Berkeley," Meehan said.

Part 1 offenses fall into two categories, violent crimes and property crimes, and the vast majority of such crimes in Berkeley are property crimes. Last year, for example, property crimes (which include many auto and home burglaries) numbered 5,724, or 92.2 percent of the total crimes.

The four Part 1 violent crimes are:
1. Murder
2. Rape
3. Robbery
4. Aggravated assault

The four Part 1 property crimes are:
5. Burglary 
6. Larceny (petty theft, grand theft, auto burglary)
7. Auto theft
8. Arson 

Patch asked if Meehan if he sees a link between the upswing in crime and the adoption of AB109, the 2011 California prison realignment law that shifted those convicted of certain crimes to local jails and supervised release instead of state prison. 

"There's some, but I can't quantify that," he said.

Meehan said a key problem is that the law may be intended to give early release only to those offenders who are deemed non-chronic, non-violent and non-sexual, but their classification in the non-chronic, non-violent and non-sexual category is based on the crime for which they are being released and does not take into account their prior criminal history.

As a result, he said, the prison realignment law results in dangerous criminals being released back into the community.

"It's not surprising," he said, "when you release chronic career offenders, they're going to come out and offend."

Another contributor to Berkeley's crime problem is its close proximity to crime-plagued Oakland, Meehan said.

"Our location is a problem," he said. "We have a large border with Oakland. I think they were just named robbery capital of the United States."

Based on FBI statistics for the first half of 2012, the most recent period for which comparative data exists, Oakland had the nation's highest robbery rate by far, higher than any American city since 2000, the Oakland Tribune reported in May. It exceeded the rate in second-place Cleveland by 36 percent.

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For other police-related news on Berkeley Patch, see our "Police and Fire" section. 


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