South Salt Lake • The City Council has begun digging into crime data as the Nov. 7 election approaches.
Councilman Mark Kindred, who is challenging incumbent Mayor Cherie Wood, led a discussion Wednesday, including a presentation of crime statistics from a state official.
Kindred said he reached out to the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) for help identifying where the city stands after he sought crime data from the administration over two months ago and “hadn’t heard anything back.”
“We just don’t have great communication as a body with the administration and I think sometimes our requests go unfulfilled,” Kindred said Friday.
Kindred said he requested this data in preparation for the homeless shelter scheduled to be located in the city, to get a feel for the baseline of crime in South Salt Lake and where it could be going once the center is established.
Wood, who has been a fierce critic of the Salt Lake County mandated shelter site, has made crime reduction part of her pitch for a third term.
BCI’s Mandy Biesinger presented to the City Council statistics from the National Incident-Based Reporting System indicating a decrease in crimes against persons from 2009 to 2015. There were 836 such voluntarily reported crimes in 2009, compared to 704 in 2015 (a 15.7 percent decrease). In addition, total reported crimes against property also dropped: from 3,328 in 2009 to 3,037 in 2015 (a nearly 9 percent decline).
However, total reported “crimes against society” saw an increase, especially drug/narcotic offenses. This latter category jumped from 385 reported cases in 2009 to 1,103 in 2015 — a nearly three-fold increase.
Biesinger said she was unaware of any changes in the FBI definition of drug offenses that would explain the increase and referred city councilmembers to the city police chief and crime analyst for more specific information.
During the presentation, Councilman Ben Pender called attention to a specific increase between 2011 and 2015 — a period encompassed within the administration of Wood, who took office in 2010.
According to the graph presented using summary based data, South Salt Lake’s crime rate per 1,000 population increased from 70.58 in 2011 to 81.25 in 2015, with a slight decrease between 2013 and 2014.
Kindred said the data presented was “nothing surprising.” South Salt Lake has elevated levels of crime, according to Kindred, and he says the statistics indicate a “mixed bag” rather than a clear trend on crimes.
Wood’s campaign website cites a drop in crime as one of her top accomplishments.
“She’s worked with our dedicated Police Department to successfully reduce crime! That includes a 64% reduction in after-school crime and an 18% decrease in risk of gang involvement for youth!” the website says.
Biesinger cautioned against drawing too broad of conclusions from statistics she presented, saying a fair analysis would take into consideration population changes and fluctuations.
“It could look like you have more crime for such a small area,” Biesinger said.
South Salt Lake Police Chief Jack Carruth said, “If you see the increase, there’s an urban density that’s going up and some proactive stuff that we’re doing.”