Violent crime in the City of Atlanta is down, according to a report released Thursday.
The Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the Atlanta Police Department through fund raising and business partnerships, announced a 4 percent drop in violent crimes within the city limits from 2012 to 2013, according to the report.
"We have a mayor, a police chief and a business community, through the Atlanta Police Foundation, all committed to improving public safety and working off a single, comprehensive play book," Foundation spokesman Michael Sepulveda said in an email.
Police officials credit, among other things, a historic boost to the number of officers and a commitment to technology-driven policing.
"The Atlanta Police Department is the largest police force in Georgia with an unprecedented level of 2,000 officers," APD spokeswoman Elizabeth Espy said. "The Atlanta Police Department now fights crime smarter and faster. The Atlanta Police Foundation is responsible for bringing innovative technologies to the Department such as the Video Integration Center, a network of private and public cameras, and PredPol, policing software which predicts crime before it occurs."
In addition to the dip in violent crime, the more than 27,000 property crimes in the city last year represented a 3.6-percent decline from 2012, according to the report.
And overall crime dropped 30 percent from 2002 to 2012, compared to a national reduction of only 14 percent, the report shows.
University of West Georgia criminology Chairman David Jenks said the influx of technology and policing manpower is a powerful deterrent that increases the risk that would-be criminals would get caught.
"With the addition of cameras, one officer can do a lot more now," Jenks said. "With the odds of getting caught higher, it's a risk-reward game for criminals."
The report offers a preview of Atlanta Police crime data that will appear this fall in the FBI's annual Uniformed Crime Report, which details nationally how many crimes are committed and how many per capita.
The Foundation report shows that there were 12 violent crimes in 2013 per 100,000 people in Atlanta.
While the 84 murders recorded last year represents a 1.2-percent increase over 2012, it was nearly a 45-percent drop from 152 homicides roughly a decade ago when the population was about the same.
Comparing five- and 10-year trends, the report showed that violent crime dropped 25 percent below the 2008 level and 35 percent below levels in 2003.
Aggravated assaults made up 9 percent of total crimes and 53.7 percent of violent crimes, while robbery accounted for 42.8 percent of violent crimes.
Rapes accounted for 1.9 percent of violent crimes and murder made up 1.5 percent, according to the report.
Jenks notes that while police agencies can and often do use such reports to tout overall accomplishments, they should take care to glean lessons from the information for future improvements.
"The fact that (the report) is done by the police foundation is always going to raise questions," he said. "They have a tremendous opportunity to have other people to look at that data and have somebody determine how they can reallocate patrols to reduce crime even further."
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