Ledes from the Land of Enchantment

Las Cruces crime data shows ups and downs over 30 years

LAS CRUCES – Daily crime stories are packed into the Sun News or TV news programs.

Sometimes the stories are insignificant; like a story about a woman who leads the police on a chase from El Paso to Las Cruces before she surrenders. Other stories, like the arrest of a man accused of beheading another man with a small knife, are more disturbing.

And if it’s not in the newspaper, it’s on the Facebook community pages.

The information has led many to believe that Las Cruces is experiencing a surge in crime. With two months left in 2021, it’s impossible to pinpoint the data that would shed light on crime trends that year.

Additionally, COVID-19 has slowed the Las Cruces police force’s ability to collect data. Even if the pandemic subsides, an LCPD spokesman said a month-long backlog remains a hurdle in the creation of current statistics.

Whatever the crime statistics for 2021, the long-term trend shows that crime reports are steady and even declining.

A Sun News analysis of Las Cruces Police Department crime statistics found that many violent crimes – such as murder, rape, and robbery – have not increased dramatically since 1990, and in some cases have even decreased. The same property crime analysis found something similar. Other violent crimes such as grievous bodily harm – defined in this context as serious threat or bodily harm – have increased significantly in recent years.

Take a look at the FBI’s data for yourself:Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer

When compared to other cities with similar demographics, Las Cruces ranks midfield, low end, and sometimes top. It all depends on how you look at it.

Violence and damage in Las Cruces

In 2021, no murder was as cruel as the murder in Apodaca Park.

Police say that a 51-year-old man was beheaded with a small knife on June 20 by Joel Arciniega-Saenz, 25. Arciniega-Saenz, who pleaded not guilty in court, is said to have told the police that he beheaded the man because the man had sexually abused Arciniega-Saenz’s wife.

However, police were unable to verify Arciniega-Saenz’s claim and could not find the woman he was allegedly married to. They don’t believe it exists.

Since then, seven more people have been murdered in Las Cruces, including a teenager. For their families, the loss of a loved one was earth-shattering, regardless of its statistical significance.

For everyone else, the small sample makes it difficult to assess a trend. An average of five people are murdered in Las Cruces each year. In 2019 that number rose to 10, and in 2020 the LCPD reported that 11 people were murdered.

According to the US Department of Justice, rape and other forms of sexual assault are among the least reported crimes in the US. The same phenomenon is likely to be the case in Las Cruces. Las Cruces has reported around 50 rapes each year since the 1990s.

National trends:Murder rates have increased, but the reporting of crime data is still pathetically out of date

The peak was in 2005 and 2006 when the LCPD recorded over 90 rape reports in both years. Since then, the numbers haven’t been that high. In 2020, Las Cruces reported 43 rapes.

The total number of rape and sexual assault cases have been reported to police, according to the FBI.

But no violent crime statistic has declined as much as robbery. Las Cruces reported 66% fewer robberies in 2020 than in 1990 and about 76% fewer robberies in 2020 compared to the 1996 peak. On average, Las Cruces reports about 83 robberies per year.

In contrast to theft and burglary, robbery occurs when one person takes something away from another person with violence or threats of violence.

Last year was the lowest reported number of robberies in 30 years. With Las Crucens secluded in their homes and business closed amid the pandemic, 2020 could be an anomaly. Still, the data show that fewer and fewer people report robbery each year.

The number of reported robberies in Las Cruces since 1990, according to the FBI.  In contrast to theft and burglary, robbery occurs when one person takes something away from another person with violence or threats of violence.

However, reports of serious bodily harm are increasing. The lowest total number of reported serious assaults occurred in 2017 at 70. In 2020, the total number of reports exploded to 314, more than five times more than four years ago.

But as with many other categories of violent crime, a recent surge pales in comparison to the crime wave of the 1990s. In 1995 Las Cruces reported over 500 serious assaults.

The total number of serious assaults in Las Cruces in 30 years, according to the FBI.  Serious assaults are one of the few violent crime statistics that has grown in recent years.

Violent crime attracts a lot of attention, but property crime also disrupts life. In three categories – theft, arson, and burglary – property crime has declined from its peak in the 1990s.

How do we compare ourselves to similar cities

For this analysis, the Sun News compared Las Cruces to five other cities in the United States.

Each city had similar population figures, rates of change in population, median household incomes, the percentage of adults in the labor force, and unemployment rates compared to Las Cruces.

Compared to these cousin cities, Las Cruces is everywhere on the map. In some cases, Las Cruces ranks well below its cousin towns. In others, Las Cruces has the unfortunate distinction of being at the top.

To see how Las Cruces compares to Lakeland, Florida; Greeley, Colorado; Tyler, Texas; and Lynchburg, Virginia, check out the graphics for this story on lcsun-news.com.

Where do these numbers come from? And what are they not telling us?

Since 1930, US law enforcement agencies have voluntarily submitted crime statistics to the FBI as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.

For this and dozens of other articles in the United States, the UCR data is the core source. But these dates don’t tell the whole story. It just tells viewers what crime has been reported. If someone has been sexually assaulted, murdered or robbed and nobody has reported it, it does not end up in such articles.

Dennis Giever, professor of criminology at New Mexico State University and director of the school’s criminal justice department, said the phenomenon is called the dark figure of crime.

Giever said that some crimes, like murder, are believed to be more accurate than others, like rape. Giever said it depends on the circumstances. If a person is missing or their body is found in a murder case, this is reported to the police.

“It’s not perfect,” said Giever. “(But) corpses are kind of hard to hide.”

For other crimes, such as rape and sexual assault, the victim may report the crime at the time of the incident or not at all.

Another problem with UCR data is definitions. What qualifies as bodily harm in one state may qualify as bodily harm in another.

“We do a pretty good job, not a perfect job, by having the same definitions in all jurisdictions,” said Giever. “It’s not perfect, but it’s way better than it was.”

Aside from UCR data, crime statistics are often collected in two other ways, according to Giever. Both involve the use of surveys and statistical analysis.

The National Crime Victimization Survey asks people in the United States whether they have been victims of crime. The surveys are sent to households and individuals across the county by the US Census Bureau.

This annual poll was started in the 1970s to capture the dark number of crime, Giever said. While the survey can better capture the dark number of crime, it is an expensive process.

Another important process for collecting crime statistics is using self-reported surveys. This process involves sending out surveys asking respondents whether they have committed a crime. While this can be a powerful tool, Giever said the problem with this method is obvious.

“If you think for a second that the police can track you down, you will lie,” said Giever.

While both surveys attempt to shed light on the dark number of crime, the FBI’s UCR data is the only one to provide data at the community level. And since the data has been collected for nearly 100 years, it can provide a century of trends.

The problem with annual data

With the last few months of 2021 bringing cold weather, more data will be released providing some insight into this year’s crime trends. About once a month the Las Cruces Police Department publishes monthly reports of crimes in Las Cruces. These reports are often posted on Facebook.

Since the pandemic, those statistics have lagged, according to Dan Trujillo, public information officer for the LCPD. For example, in May on September 17, the department released data on crime.

Trujillo attributes this delay to the pandemic. When employees were sent home to work, they lost access to the systems required to access and tabulate crime statistics. said Trujillo.

“We’re catching up,” said Trujillo.

While the monthly data can be interesting, according to Giever, there is a problem with looking at crime statistics without considering the long-term data.

“It’s less important to know what was last year,” said Giever.

Justin Garcia is a public safety reporter for Las Cruces Sun-News. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 575-541-5449 or on Twitter at @ Just516garc.

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