APD Safety Report for First Half of 2013
July 25,2013
Downtown Atlanta continues to be one of the safest places in the City of Atlanta. While comprising almost half of the population of Atlanta, and not including the ever changing convention and special event populations, Downtown only represents 7% of the city’s crime. Most of the crime in Downtown is Larceny related (76%), with 42% of it involving Larceny from Auto, where most often high value items were left in plain view. Most of the victims of this offense are from out of town, and are not aware of our Clean Car Campaign.
The crime rate in Downtown remained almost flat from the same time frame last year, with the exception of the significant reduction of robberies. This is following a year that experienced a 10% reduction for the year, and preceded by a few years of significant reductions, yielding more than a 25% reduction in crime in the last 4 years. Almost 95% of crime in Downtown is nonviolent, with very little stranger-on-stranger crime. Our challenges continue to be the nuisance type crime, which are prevalent in most all urban centers. We continue to try to address repeat offenders, who are responsible for the preponderance of crime in Downtown.
Deployment of police in Downtown is calculated and driven by predictive policing. The Operation Shield cameras in the Video Integration Center (VIC), as well as at Zone 5 headquarters, continue to provide excellent policing tools to aid both the public and private sector efforts. Downtown police will continue to focus on reducing larcenies from auto; maximize the surveillance systems; use analytics and quantifiable crime data to drive deployment tactics; continue to emphasize the Clean Car Campaign, and reach out to visitors in advance; and continue to foster public-private relationships.