While many cities across the nation are grappling with skyrocketing crime rates, one city in metro Atlanta is enjoying a three-year run during which its crime numbers have plunged more than 40%.
South Fulton recently announced a 17% drop in serious crime in 2021. It was the third year in a row the city has seen a double-digit drop, according to police statistics.
“It makes me feel like folks around here are doing their job, in order for the crime rate to drop like that within the past three years,” said Lekia Williams, who moved to South Fulton from East Atlanta two years ago. “It makes me feel safe for our kids, that I can go out in the community without feeling like I’ve got to watch my back.”
The city’s serious crime rate, which includes murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies and auto theft, fell 16% in 2019 and dropped another 17% in 2020. Since 2018, the year the police department was established, South Fulton has seen an overall 41.5% reduction, according to statistics.
Officials in South Fulton’s police department attribute the success to the use of “CompStat,” a metrics system introduced by the New York Police Department in 1994 that relies heavily on statistics. The computerized model became a cornerstone of the Big Apple’s drastic decline in crime in the 1990s.
New tools for police
The way it works in South Fulton is an officer crunches the crime stats and gathers analytics each week, looking for trends in criminal activity that police can use to anticipate patterns. The officer puts together a weekly CompStat report on calls and results that allows command staff to track details like the time of day, day of the week and street address where incidents occur.
The data is shown on maps to illustrate hot spots and peak times, which police leaders discuss in weekly meetings. They use the intel to deploy manpower for the week.
Many law enforcement agencies around the nation have adopted the process. Police Chief Keith Meadows has touted it as perhaps the “single-most important innovation in modern policing.” It’s part of his mantra of “intelligence-led policing” in the 21st century, an approach guided by technology.
“CompStat provides us with a way to accurately and quickly identify part of the city where a majority of serious crimes happen,” Meadows said. “Using that information, we can deploy resources to problem areas.”
Credit: South Fulton Police Department
Credit: South Fulton Police Department
Cheyenne Markham said her family moved to Ben Hill, a southwest Atlanta neighborhood just north of South Fulton, in 2020. She’s noticed the infrastructure upgrades around town, and news of the drop in crime makes her feel safer.
“I can definitely see the city making improvements,” Markham said recently while shopping with her daughter at the Cascade Corners shopping plaza in South Fulton. “It makes me feel better about our decision to move here long term.”
South Fulton’s crime is decreasing while gun violence is surging for its neighbor to the north. Atlanta police investigated 158 homicides in 2021, a year in which the city recorded its highest tally of killings since 1996.
So far this year, Atlanta is on pace to surpass that. Through the first 10 weeks of 2022, there have been 31 homicides in the city compared to 23 a year ago, according to weekly crime stats.
Evolve or get left behind
South Fulton was incorporated in 2017 and has quickly become one of the fastest growing cities in Georgia. For a young and relatively understaffed police department, officials said Meadows’ vision for a cutting-edge police force makes officers more efficient.
“Working smarter, not harder,” South Fulton police Capt. Marcus Dennard said. “Criminals are constantly evolving. And if you’re not evolving as a police force, you’re going to get left behind.”
The decreases in 2021 were essentially across the board, statistics show. Burglaries plummeted about 37%, while aggravated assaults dipped more than 22% and robberies slid nearly 17%. Overall, thefts fell just shy of 14%.
Rapes and homicides remained about flat. But Dennard said detectives solved 18 of the 20 homicides from 2020 and have worked back on the two unsolved cases. The clearance rate for the city’s homicide cases last year eclipsed 90%, Dennard said.
Catherine Foster-Rowell, South Fulton’s District 1 councilwoman, said the city has added more officers and assigned more beats each year. She said that’s fostered more community policing, reduced response times and has been one of the biggest factors in reducing crime.
“I think the fact that we see it across the entire city is important. It’s not just one area,” Rowell said. “I think that speaks to the fact that the strategies we’ve put in place are working, and we just need to keep at it. I want us to be on the map as being the safest city in metro Atlanta one day.”
Credit: South Fulton Police Department
Credit: South Fulton Police Department
South Fulton Councilwoman Natasha Williams, whose district is in the southeast pocket of the city, said crime along Old National Highway went down 28% last year. She credited the narcotics team for targeting gang leaders who peddle drugs out of businesses along the commercial corridor that serve as fronts for their operations.
Police used CompStat to stage two major drug busts during the winter holidays, which yielded more than 100 arrests and seizures of guns, drugs, $65,000 in cash and 11 pounds of marijuana.
“That goes a long way towards being able to get your crime rate down,” Williams said. “When you can take bad actors off the street, people in the community can feel safe living, working and playing here.”
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