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Highlands Today

Are County Burglaries, Property Crimes Rising?

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: September 12, 2008

SEBRING - With so many burglaries and burglary arrests making the news, the question comes up, are burglaries and other property crimes on the rise in Highlands County?

The answer to the question changes when examining figures from year to year, looking back 10 years, five years, four years, three... or comparing the first six months of 2008 to the same period in 2007.

However, in general it appears the trend is downward in Highlands County for property crimes, which cost residents millions of dollars each year.
Law enforcement agencies in Highlands County as well as statewide and nationwide use a system they refer to as the UCR - or Uniform Crime Report. In Florida, law enforcement agencies gather and submit those figures to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

A property crime occurs every 42 seconds in the state of Florida, according to the FDLE.

"The UCR is a crime collection apparatus," said Mike Durham, general counsel for the Highlands County Sheriff's Office. "It is not a crime analysis tool. It's a good source to draw numbers from for further in-depth analysis."

What makes studying the statistics so complicated is that the results, the facts and figures, depend on from what year the figures are taken to compare them with each other, as well as which figures were used and what methods were used to gather them.

For example in 2006, half of that year the figures were compiled manually and the latter half of the year the sheriff's office implemented the "Smart Cops" computer system, which can compile the figures, according to a spokeswoman in central records.

"Smart Cops is based on Florida Statutes," said Durham. "Items had to be coded in correctly in accordance with UCR guidelines."

Burglaries are classified in different categories, but most importantly, according to the Highlands County Sheriff's Office Central Records, car burglaries are classified by the statisticians in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as larcenies.

There is no doubt that incidents, of what has been labeled as "car fishing," which are actually car burglaries, have risen over the last year.

"We definitely were having more of the unoccupied vehicles (burglarized), crimes of opportunity," said Sebring Police Cmdr. Steve Carr.

In 1998 there were 1,425 burglaries committed in Highlands County, including the municipalities. However, within the jurisdiction of the sheriff's office there were 901 burglaries that year.

Five years later, in 2002, there were 1,184 burglaries countywide, including the cities' figures, but the sheriff's office investigated 754.

In 2004 there were 928 burglaries overall and the sheriff's office had 590. In 2005, it was 831 countywide and 564 investigated by the county.

The years 2006 and 2007 saw a rise to 1,157 and 1,107 burglaries respectively. The sheriff's office investigated 800 and 769 respectively.

So from 2004 to 2007 there was a rise, but from 1998 to 2007 there was a decline.

For the first six months of 2008, the number of burglaries being investigated by the sheriff's office is 231, compared to 468 for the same period in 2007.

Also many larceny cases, including car burglaries, are recorded by incident rather than by the number of offenses.

For example, if there were 10 car burglaries in the same neighborhood reasonably believed to have been committed by the same persons, it is recorded as one incident, rather than as 10 offenses.

Shoplifting and pick-pocketing, among other things, come under the header of larcenies as well.

The FDLE takes all the figures, compiles them and comes up with a Total Property Crime Index number for each county, each year.

For 1997 the total number of property index crimes for Highlands County, including burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts was 3,949.

By comparison, in 2002 the total number of property index crimes was 3,514; and in 2007 it was 2,882, a drop of more than 1,000 over 10 years.

The Property Index Crime figure for all of Highlands County hit its lowest point in 2005 at 2,786.

For the sheriff's office, from 2006 to 2007, burglaries were down 3.9 percent from 800 to 769; larceny was down .9 percent from 1,015 to 1,006 and motor vehicle thefts were up 36.4 percent from 107 to 146.

The total value of items stolen in property crimes in 2007 was $3,867,635 with $1,201,962 recovered.

For the beginning of 2008 through June, compared to the same period in 2007, burglaries were down from 467 to 231 for a 50.6 percent drop. Larceny was up 34.7 percent from 467 to 629 and motor vehicle theft was up 29.4 percent from 51 to 66.

The sheriff's office has criminal analysts examining all the data it collects and the next evolution in law enforcement will be targeting its resources based on that data, said Durham.

"The sheriff is exploring innovative methods to discover and root out criminal activity," he said.

Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .

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