While reported crime in 2020 was down significantly from the 2019 numbers, crime rates have nearly risen back to their pre-pandemic levels according to the Ripon Police Department.
Through the end of September, Ripon saw total of 288 Part 1 crimes compared to only 233 through the same time period the previous year – with the sharpest rise coming thanks to an increase in simple assaults that have risen by 43 cases when compared to the previous year.
The 2021 total through September of 288 Part 1 crimes – the crimes that are reported to the FBI for its national database – has nearly reached the 293 that were reported through September of 2019.
With such a marked difference between 2019 and the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials have encouraged residents to compare current crime statistics not to those in 2020 – where the disparities are largest because crime plummeted – but with the year before the pandemic started in order to get a realistic picture of how much crime has actually increased statistically.
Last year Ripon saw only 293 Type 1 crimes all year compared to the 343 the previous year – where the city had recorded 293 Type 1 crimes through only the first nine months of the year.
Type 1 crimes that are reported to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting includes murder, attempted murder, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny (theft), motor vehicle theft, and arson.
And technology also comes into play.
Cities like Ripon and Lathrop have invested in recent years in license plate reading cameras that alert officers when a flagged vehicles passes under its gaze – notifying them of wanted individuals and vehicles that have been reported stolen and giving them a real-time location so that they can respond to the area.
That technology has led to a variety of arrests for stolen vehicles in Ripon from people outside of Ripon’s city limits.
The use of the technology has attracted the attention of privacy experts, and a law in California has looked to curtail sharing the information obtained by the systems and allow for regular audits to ensure that the systems are not being abused.
To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.
