FBI reports minor increase in violent crimes in Santa Ana

The FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, January-December, 2011-2012, has been released online.  The news is a mixed bag for Santa Ana.  Overall violent crime has gone up marginally by 2% from the previous year, but some categories of violent crime have seen increases of up to 23% while others have dropped by as much as 64%

You can read the data for yourself here.  You can compare this data to past years by looking at the FBI crime data from 2010 and 2011 here.  I put all of the Santa Ana info into a spreadsheet that you can look at here.

So what is goinge on here in Santa Ana?  Here are the numbers:

• Violent Crime is up from 1,313 incidents in 2011 to 1,334 crimes in 2012.
• Motor Vehicle Thefts went up the most, from 1,286 to 1,578, an increase of 23%
• Aggravated assaults went up from 647 to 727, an increase of 12%
• Property Crimes went up from 6,575 to 7,389, an increase of 12%
• Larceny-Theft went up from 4,222 to 4,779, an increase of 13%
• Murders fell slightly from 13 to 11
• Robberies went down a bit too, from 591 to 541
• Burglaries went down as well, from 1,067 to 1,032
• Arson went down a lot, from  101 incidents in 2011 to only 36 in 2012

Are those good numbers?  That is hard to say without comparing them to other similar-sized cities.  For example, Santa Ana’s population in the latest report is 332,482.  That is compable to Anaheim, which has a population of 344,526. 

• Anaheim had 1,279 violent crimes in 2012.  They have a larger population than Santa Ana but less violent crimes.
• Bakersfield has a population of 355,696.  They had 1,929 crimes in 2012.
• Riverside has a population of 313,532.  They had 1,389 crimes in 2012.

So Santa Ana is a lot better off than some other large cities in the state – but we can certainly do better.  Irvine, by comparison, had 110 violent crimes in 2012.  It is worth noting that an Irvine businessman who lived in Santa Ana was killed recently during a high speed chase.  He was a 33-year old visionary and because of a bunch of gang-bangers he is now dead.  That certainly won’t encourage more people to move here.