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Source: Dayton Daily News, OhioSept.迷你倉 06--While crime trends are mixed this year in the area's largest suburbs, crime rates in the city of Dayton have declined in seven of the eight major categories compared to last year.Through the first eight months of 2013, violent crime in Dayton -- homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- is down 7 percent from last year, according to police statistics. Property crime -- residential burglary, arson and two types of theft -- is down 12 percent.Dayton's three largest suburbs -- Kettering, Beavercreek and Huber Heights -- have much lower overall rates of crime than Dayton. Kettering's violent crime rate is up slightly this year, to 29 incidents through July, but that is dwarfed by Dayton's 821 incidents through August.Property crime trends are up this year in Kettering and Beavercreek, with burglary, larceny and car theft numbers up according to police in both cities. Huber Heights' comparatively low homicide and rape numbers numbers also have risen this year.An apples-to-apples comparison of crime statistics between cities is difficult, because of different incident reporting systems and ways the cities categorize crimes.Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said his city's success in lowering crime rates is not limited to this year. Tracking a three-year trend, Dayton's 821 violent crimes through August this year marks a 20 percent decline from the 1,026 that happened in the first eight months of 2010. Property crime is down 15.5 percent in that span.The Dayton trend follows national statistics reported. Violent crime fell for the fifth year in a row, dropping 4.5 percent (for every 100,000 people), according to FBI's statistics released for 2011, the most recent available. Property crime fell for the ninth year in a row by 1.3 percent, according to the FBI.If you ask Biehl, Dayton Mayor Gary Leitzell, community leaders and Dayton's police union, you'll get a variety of reasons for the drop in crime here."The biggest change for us ... was the restructuring we went through early in 2011," Biehl said, referring to a move to decentralize property crime detectives. "It created a true synergy between patrol officers who are out in the community 24/7, the detectives who have to do follow-up investigation on unsolved crimes, and crime prevention officers who respond to emerging crime patterns and implement prevention strategies. It got them all talking and working together."Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Galbraith disagreed on the value of the restructuring, but he raised two other issues that echoed Biehl's reasoning.The first was Dayton's ability to hire police officers again after a multi-year, lawsuit-induced hiring freeze. Dayton's first two classes totaling 43 new officers have hit the streets -- one last year and one this year -- and a third class is in the police academy. Galbraith's other idea dealt with collaboration with other agencies."I think a lot of it has to do with local agencies teaming up with federal agencies, and working together and taking major criminals in Dayton off the street," Galbraith said. "We've removed several individuals who were responsible for homicides and drug trafficking儲存倉 and a lot of them are doing federal prison time."Property crime is the biggest concern in Kettering, and Police Chief James O'Dell said the city's numbers rose this year due in part to the work of some"career criminals" who have since been arrested. O'Dell said Kettering's arrest numbers are also up this year, and case clearance rates are well above national averages."The best measure is our residents' perception of safety," O'Dell said. "Our 2012 Citizen Satisfaction Survey tells us that people feel safe in their neighborhoods."Kevin Jones, president of the Fair River Oaks Priority Board, said the declining crime numbers in Dayton sound fairly accurate based on what he's seen in northwest Dayton, but he wonders how much crime isn't reported at all, as people worry about their own safety and choose not to get involved.That worry dovetails with one of Biehl's main concerns."To this day, despite improvements in technology, interviewing techniques and forensics, the most important factor in whether police solve a crime or not is whether citizens will tell them who did it," he said. "And that's all based on relationships. How do they feel about the police officers that serve in their community? Do they know them? Do they like them? Do they trust them?"Jones said that's a mixed bag citywide, but is a success in the Phoenix Project area near Good Samaritan hospital, where hospital funding helps pay for focused policing by Dayton officers."They have assigned officers, and their whole responsibility is this community," Jones said. "They take ownership. It's not their job that they go to everyday, it's their neighborhood. They sound like the gang players, because they become territorial. And I see that starting to improve in some other neighborhoods, too, as officers take ownership."Leitzell said Dayton still has an unfair perception problem, arguing that law-abiding citizens are very unlikely to become crime victims in the city."When you're city-specific (about crime), people are afraid to come to all of Dayton," Leitzell said. "If you're neighborhood-specific ... what that does for the citizens, is they can identify that certain neighborhoods need help."Leitzell also focused on the need for a better relationship between police and city residents."I think we're getting there," Leitzell said. "There's still a big divide, which is why we have the community-police relations group that Commissioner Williams put together. That was long overdue, and they're realizing there's a dialogue that has to be held. Certain cultures don't trust the police, and they may be justified in doing so, so it's up to our police department to reach out and be willing to help solve some of the problems."Biehl said those who point to a population decline as the reason for Dayton's crime decline have their numbers wrong. Dayton's violent crime rate has dropped 20 percent in three years, while Dayton's population declined less than 15 percent all of last decade, and actually increased in 2011 according to Census estimates.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at .daytondailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉價錢