Albany police: Property crimes down, violent crime up so far in 2016

ALBANY — The Albany Police Department has released its crime data report for the first five months of 2016, comparing the data to the same period in 2014 and 2015. Overall, the crime trend so far in 2016 for metropolitan Albany is an improvement over what the city experienced in the first five months of 2015.

While overall Part I (more serious) Crime was down 3.64 percent for the first five months of 2016 compared to the same period last year, violent crimes were up 4.35 percent, despite a 28.57 percent drop in rape cases. Six murders were reported each of the two years, while 10 more robberies and eight more aggravated assaults have been reported this year compared to last year.

But lower numbers in property crimes (except arson, which has nine cases reported this year and in 2015) helped drop the year-to-year statistics for the current year. Burglaries dropped by 10.11 percent, acts of larceny by 2.19 percent and auto thefts by 20.25 percent to offset the increase in violent crimes. In all, 83 fewer property crimes (a drop of 5.28 percent) have been reported this year compared to 2015.

Percentages were not reported for clearance rates, but eight fewer violent crimes and 26 fewer property crimes have been cleared by the department so far in 2016 compared to last year.

The Part II (less serious) Crime rate showed a sharp year-to-year decline of 27.58 percent. In raw numbers, APD has recorded 2,482 reports of forgery, fraud, embezzlement, gambling, drunkenness, disorderly conduct and the like for 2016. That compares to 3,427 cases for the first five months of last year.

Assaults that are not listed as aggravated assaults have dropped almost by half to 147 this year from 288 in 2015. Offenses against family and children have gone down by 46.55 percent, from 608 a year ago to 325 this year.

Several specific areas such as fraud, stolen property, vandalism, drug abuse violations, disorderly conduct and vagrancy, however, have shown significant increases among the Part II Crimes.

The APD has handled 109 fraud complaints (compared to 87 last year), 110 stolen property complaints (107 last year), 709 vandalism complaints (604 last year), 201 drug violations (162 last year), 574 disorderly conduct complaints (315 last year) and 14 vagrancy complaints (three last year).

Local ordinance violations have bucked the trend during the current year, rising overall by 8.83 percent. Some of the largest increases are in saggy pants cases (53 this year compared to 15 last year), animal control complaints (61 compared to 21) and missing persons complaints (103 compared to 88).

“I feel like we are basically on par with last year,” said APD Chief Michael Persley. “Although, we have seen a small increase in some of the violent crimes, I think if we better address the Part II crimes — the disorderly conducts, the minor drug offenses, the drunkenness calls, the quality of life offenses — we can keep those crimes from escalating into more serious issues.

“Also, I believe some of the violent crime increases, like the aggravated assaults, are due to changes in state law that have made an offense which used to be a lesser matter into a more serious one.”

The report also compares crime specific to May 2016 to those recorded for May in 2015 and 2014.