Guest Commentary: Throwing Money at Problems – Will a sales tax increase lower crime in Elk Grove?
By DJ Blutarsky |
If the City Council places a sales tax increase on the ballot in November, I have prepared myself for the onslaught of promises that the City will claim the added revenue will help improve or fix. One of the go-to hot buttons will likely be the promise to reduce crime by hiring more police officers. But is this a good sound bite or will a sales tax increase truly reduce crime in our city?
Each year the City police department reports crime statistics and department staffing levels to the F.B.I. So out of curiosity, I reviewed the latest online data reported for 2019 and compared it with the data for 2018 and 2017. I singled out the categories of Property Crimes and Larceny Theft because those two categories are more likely to impact the average resident, then say Murder or Rape. I realize that as the population increases, crimes will surely increase as well. So I looked at the crime rates per 1,000 population.
The charts below indicate that despite the number of sworn officers remaining constant at 0.79 officers per 1,000 population, the property crime and larceny-theft rates have steadily increased. Property crime incidents have increased from 13.0 to 14.8 per 1,000 population. Larceny theft has also steadily increased from 13.7 to 14.0 incidents per 1,000 population. Again, these numbers have all taken population increases into account, and yet these two crime statistics are showing a worsening trend.
FBI information:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-78/table-78-state-cuts/california.xls
