Serious crime in Manteca — driven primarily by auto burglaries — is up 19.72 percent during the first six months of this year.
There were 1,093 felonies committed through June 30 compared to 913 for the same time period in 2014.
Auto burglaries have surged 90.18 percent in the first six months of this year reaching 310 incidents compared to 163 for the first six months of 2014.
Police advise residents not to leave anything of value — or that looks like it may contain something of value such as a gym bag — within view of someone looking into the window of a vehicle.
The other major category that has gone up significantly is robberies. There were 57 committed from January through June of this year compared to 29 for the same six  months in 2014. That reflects a 96.55% increase.
Other categories did increase such as unlawful intercourse/rape, aggravated assault, and “other burglary” but all except vehicle theft were single digit gains. Vehicle theft was up 18.83 percent going from 154 to 183.
Residential  burglaries are down 11.5 percent going from 113 to 100 while commercial burglary retreated 19.74 percent going from 76 to 61. Arson, murder, grand theft and all other felonies also dropped.
While some jurisdictions in California are blaming the surge in auto burglaries, thefts, and shoplifting on Proposition 42 passed two years ago that converted some felonies into misdemeanors as well as on the mandated reduction of state inmates serving time for crime, Manteca Police are waiting for the 2015 per 1,000 population statistics to be released in September before makingany conclusions. Police Chief Nick Obligacion has said if the results show California cities spiking in terms of crime compared to the rest of the country, he will be willing to draw some conclusions at that time.
Crime per 1,000 residents is considered the best measure of how safe a community is over the years as it provides a consistent benchmark to judge crime against.
Burglaries, for example, shot up 21.58 percent in Manteca during 2015.
There were 800 burglaries in 2015 including 252 classified as residential, 380 as auto, 129 as commercial, and 39 as other.  That’s up 142 in raw numbers from 2014 but is the same number of burglaries that were committed in Manteca in 2010 — 800.
Overall burglaries in Manteca actually peaked in 2005 with a record 1,265 took place.
Every category of felony in Manteca jumped in 2015 from murder to vehicle theft as overall felonies were at 2,004, an increase of 14.84 percent over the 1,745 burglaries in 2014. There were 406 vehicle thefts in 2015 as opposed to the record 798 in 2005.
Felonies that include crimes such as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, residential burglary, grand theft, commercial burglary, vehicle theft, and arson are down significantly in the past 12 years given Manteca has actually grown by 19,000 residents from 54,975 in 2002 to today’s population of 74,000.
That is mirrored by FBI statistics for Manteca and other cities between 50,000 and 100,000 population based on crimes per 1,000 residents from 2005 through 2014.
In 2014 — the last per 1,000 stats available from the FBI for cities 50,000 to 100,000 residents— shows Manteca is
uslightly above California and the United States for burglary and motor vehicle theft.
uhalf the national rate as well as being below the California rate for murder and aggravated assault.
usignificantly below the United States and California for violent crime less rape.
umatches the United States rate for property crime but is above the California rate.
Misdemeanor thefts in Manteca are up 35.42 percent going from 511 to 692 as of June 30 of each year.
Despite the double digit increases in various theft categories the value of property stolen through June of this year is up just 5.44 percent reaching $2.4 million. Of that, 41.97 percent of the dollar value  was eventually reovered by Manteca Police
Manteca has lowered its crime rate per 1,000 residents with a force of only 64 sworn officers down from a peak authorization level of 72 during the last decade.  Manteca has 0.9 officers per 1,000 residents while San Francisco and Los Angeles have 2.9 officers per 1,000 residents. Stockton has 1.17, Modesto has 1.06, and Turlock has 1.12 officers per 1,000 residents