The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office has released its six-month 2015 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) statistics for "Part I" Crimes in all Sheriff’s jurisdictions. Overall, Part I Crimes are up 8%, specifically Violent Crime is up 30% and Property Crime is up 6% for the period January through June 2015.

Violent crime was up in all categories in the contract cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, Ojai and unincorporated areas. The city of Moorpark had no increase and Thousand Oaks had a decline.

The cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, and Moorpark saw significant increases in burglaries, both residential and commercial type. Additionally, all jurisdictions saw an increase in stolen vehicles, with the exception of Ojai.

The city of Ojai had significant declines in all property crimes with the exception of residential burglaries. Although the city of Thousand Oaks showed a decline in overall violent crimes, property crimes increased in the areas of grand/petty thefts and stolen vehicles. The unincorporated areas experienced increases in all violent and property crime categories with the exception of Grand Thefts.

The Sheriff’s jurisdictions are experiencing gang “crew” members from outside Ventura County coming in and committing residential burglaries and other thefts. Several of these crews committed “knock knock” burglaries and were apprehended after extensive investigations by investigators. Additionally, one person was arrested for approx. 8 robberies in Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles. Much of the increase in Aggravated Assaults was due to these robberies and Domestic Violence.

As a reminder, in January of 2014, the definition for Rape changed and the UCR Program started collecting uniform information from law enforcement agencies with the new definition which broadened the scope of the previously narrow definition. For more information about this change, visit www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/new-rape-fact-sheet.

This new definition redistributed currently captured crime information from the category Part II “Sex Offenses” to the category Part I “Rape.” As predicted, this category in Part 1 showed a significant increase.

Although the Sheriff’s Office has recorded an increase in Part 1 crimes for the first six months, Ventura County is still a very safe area to live in. From 2010 to 2014, total Part 1 crimes for Sheriff’s jurisdictions have dropped almost 4%, a total of 1,291 less crimes. During the same time period, the crime rate per 1000 population went from 16.61 to 12.56. Listed below are the crime rates per 1000 for each of the Sheriff’s jurisdictions for the past five years:

As to Proposition 47's consequences, both intended and unintended, they are only beginning to be evaluated. Early indications show that it has not reduced jail populations and has put offenders back out on the streets sooner without the requirement of being on probation or attending substance abuse classes. Sheriff Dean is coordinating on a statewide level through the California State Sheriff’s Association on the identification, retention and collection of Proposition 47 related data and the results will be distributed.

The Sheriff's Office encourages people to actively report suspicious and/or criminal activity immediately by calling 9-1-1. Non-emergency reports can be made through the Sheriff’s Communication Center at (805) 654-9511.

Source: local.nixle.com/alert/5484889