The preliminary crimes stats are in for the first half of 2005 in Henderson, and they show little change overall from the first half of 2004.
That’s a positive result when you consider this fact: The overall and violent crime rates dropped by about a fifth in 2004 from 2003, producing the lowest rates since Glen Allen took over as police chief in 1997.
Among the major violent and property crimes grouped as Part 1 offenses, the city had 860 in the first half of 2004 and 857 in the first half of 2005, a statistically meaningless improvement of 0.35 percent.
Property crimes produced the best news. The number of such crimes declined from 790 to 780.
The key was a 16 percent drop in break-ins: Burglaries fell from 181 to 152.
Motor vehicle thefts rose from 39 to 41, and larceny jumped from 570 to 587. According to Allen’s announcement of the crime statistics, shoplifting was largely responsible for the increase in larceny cases. That means more stores are catching shoplifters, not necessarily that more shoplifting is going on.
On the violence side, the total number of crimes rose to 77 from 70, an increase of 10 percent.
Homicides were unchanged at two, but all of the other areas of violent crime increased: robberies, from 41 to 43; aggravated assaults, from 26 to 28; and rape, from one to four.
Allen has said Henderson’s relatively small size can lead to statistical swings that are misleadingly large, and the results for rape demonstrate the point. The number rose by three, or 300 percent.