FBI’s annual crime report shows declines in violent crime in Springfield, across Massachusetts - MassLive.com

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SPRINGFIELD — Crime in Massachusetts cities and towns declined in 2019 at a rate faster than in the United States overall, according to the FBI’s annual survey of state and local law enforcement agencies.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows crime is on the decline nationwide according to its two major categories, crimes involving violence and property crimes.

The the report shows violent crime in 2019 declined by 1% from the year before, and property crimes declined by 4.5%.

It is the third year in a row where the amount of violent crime has decreased nationwide. It went down 3.5% in 2018 and 0.7% in 2017.

In Massachusetts, violent crime declined by 3.6% and property crimes declined by 7.2%. In Springfield, violent crime was down by 9% and property crimes were down 2%

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and Police Commissioner Cheryl C. Clapprood said the decline in both categories reflects the work of the members of the police department to serve the city.

“Our SPD has made some significant gains to address crime,” Sarno said in a statement.

“The results from this report (show) that our strategic approach is working,” Sarno said.

Clapprood said “it attests to the women and men of the department doing their best and to our relationship to the community.”

Speaking generally about the FBI data, Creaig Dunton, an associate professor of criminal justice at Western New England University, said they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The Uniform Crime Report relies on local police departments sending in their data, and some departments are better at that than others, he said.

“It depends on the police being honest,” he said.

For example, if a local police department were to categorize a bunch of aggravated assaults as simple assaults, its violent crime numbers would go down.

“It’s hard for me not to be cynical,” Dunton said.

The report has been compiled each year since 1930, using data from state, local, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies across the country. This year’s report is based on information from 16,554 agencies.

Nationwide, the number of homicides increased by 0.3% and aggravated assaults by 1.3%. These increases were offset by declines of 2.7% in the number of reported rapes and 7.2% in robberies, leading to an overall decline in the violent crime rate.

Across Massachusetts, homicides increased last year by 12%, from 138 to 152, but the numbers in other violent categories declined. Reported rapes declined by 10.1%, robberies by 11.5% and aggravated assaults by just under 1%.

The decrease in violent crime puts Massachusetts in the middle of the pack among the six New England states. Rhode Island (0.7%), Maine (3.2%) and Vermont (9.3%) showed increases, while Connecticut (12.5%) and New Hampshire (13.7%) had double-digit declines.

Of the largest cities in Massachusetts, Lynn, population 94,000, showed the largest decrease in violent crime at 17%, while Lowell showed the largest increase at 12%.

Ranked from biggest decrease to biggest increase, the list is as follows:

Lynn -17%
Brockton -10%
Springfield -9%
Worcester -8%
Boston -2%
Cambridge -1%
New Bedford +4%
Quincy +7%
Lowell +12%

Lynn reported its violent crimes decreased by 98 cases to 465 for the year. The number of homicides nearly tripled from three to eight, but the city saw double-digit decreases in reported sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults that contributed to the decline.

Boston, by virtue of being nearly four times bigger than the next largest city in Massachusetts, has the greatest amount of violent crime of any locality in the state. It has the most murders, robberies and larcenies each year.

According to the FBI’s report, the number of homicides in Boston fell from 56 to 42, a decrease of 25%. Boston also saw its reported rapes decline by 17% and robberies by 11%. The only category showing an increase was aggravated assaults, which jumped by 4%.

When the violent crime numbers for the state’s largest cities are converted into a per-capita crime rate — that is, the number of crimes divided by the population and then multiplied by 100,000 — Boston slides to the middle of the pack, while Springfield is unchallenged at the top of the list.

The list of cities with the highest violent crime rates for every 100,000 people is as follows:

Springfield (population 154,306): 905
Brockton (95,287): 821
New Bedford (94,613): 640
Worcester (184,945): 630
Boston (698,941): 607
Lynn (94,113): 492
Quincy (94,113): 398
Lowell (111,423): 363
Cambridge (119,908): 279

In Worcester, the state’s second-largest city with 184,900 residents, violent crime was down 8% and property crimes were down 5%.

There were 45 fewer aggravated assaults, 61 fewer robberies and nine fewer rapes, for declines of 5%, 21% and 18%, respectively. Homicides increased by an eye-opening 225%, from four in 2018 to 13 last year.

Springfield’s 9% reduction in violent crime is basically a reversal from 2018, when it rose by 12%

The number of homicides increased from 19 to 20, and the number of reported aggravated assaults was basically the same, an increase of two cases to 938 for the year.

Robberies declined by 25% from 475 to 358, and rapes declined by 23 cases to 81 for the year, or by 22%

However, the decline in the number of rapes last year follows a steep increase the year before. In 2018, the number of reported rapes increased by 31 to 104, a 42% increase.

At the time, officials attributed the increase to a greater awareness of sexual assault and a greater willingness of survivors to report it as a result of the #MeToo movement.

The 2019 figure is comparable with amounts from between 2013 and 2016 when there were between 81 and 89 cases reported per year.

Taking a long view, Springfield’s numbers indicate what seem to be positive trends.

The amount of violent and property crime reported in 2019 is around half of what it was 15 years ago.

In 2005, there were 2,692 violent crimes reported and 8,703 property crimes. In 2019, violent crimes totaled 1,397, and property crimes 4,005.

With the exception of homicides, which have fluctuated from year to year between 13 and 22, Springfield in each crime category is showing declines over the past 15 years. In some categories, the decline is quite pronounced.

Aggravated assaults are down 47%, robberies are down 53%, burglaries are down 77%, larcenies 63% and car thefts 80%.

Clapprood said the police department has made inroads over the last decade in working with people in the neighborhoods, and those relationships are paying off.

She said when she goes to neighborhood meetings expecting to field questions about violent crime or property crime, people instead ask about quality of life issues.

“They want to talk about what can be done about traffic, or trash on their street, or abandoned cars,” she said.

Those are the types of crime not covered in the Uniform Crime Report, but they are big concerns at the neighborhood level, she said.

Addressing neighborhood concerns about little things helps Springfield police form relationships with residents, Clapprood said. That makes people more willing to come forward to report bigger things.

“It’s a two-way street,” she said.

Community trust is another factor that can skew the FBI statistics, said Dunton, the Western New England University professor. If members of a community lack trust in the police, they may not report crimes, and those numbers would not appear in the Uniform Crime Report, he said.

He referred to a Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics survey that estimated fewer than half of victims of violent crime ever notify police.

The 2019 survey estimated that violent-crime victims report to the police only 41% of the time. The reporting rate for white victims was 37%, while for Black and Hispanic victims it was 49%.

While the numbers in the FBI report are trending down, and have been for some time, there is a perception among many in the public that the reverse is true — that crime is out of control.

As recently as a year ago, a Gallup survey showed 64% of respondents felt crime has gotten worse. This is an increase of 4 percentage points from 2018.

Dunton said the public perception of crime will always differ from what is shown in the data. “Most people will never read the Uniform Crime Report,” he said.

Politicians, members of the press, and now social media continually emphasize crime, and that helps shape perception.

“It gets people riled up that crime is increasing,” he said. “We have a president campaigning on law and order.”

Dunton said it will be interesting to see the results of the 2020 edition of the Uniform Crime Report.

The 2019 edition is based on data from before the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting recession and lockdown, and before any of the protests and rioting in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Dunton said a lot of crimes, such as homicides, assaults and robberies, are the result of people encountering each other in public places. The lockdown eliminated a lot of that, he said.

And historically, robberies, larcenies and burglaries have always increased in times of economic hardship. At the peak of the shutdown, nearly 17 million people were unemployed.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Dunton said of next year’s report. “They’re going to have to have a lot of written asterisks.”