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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In a recent discussion of local issues, someone made the claim that crime rates were &quot;way up&quot; in our area. My knee-jerk was to dismiss this out-of-hand as baseless fear-mongering, but ultimately using my own gut feeling is no better than what I suspect this individual was doing. I tried to find data for our part of Fairfax, but all I could find were annual numbers for the entirety of Fairfax county, e.g.:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/police/sites/police/files/assets/images/helpfulinfo/crime%20in%20our%20county/crime%20statistics/fcpd%202021%20group%20a%20offenses.pdf

Does anyone know of any other sources that might be either more granular, either in terms of time period or the more specific area within Fairfax County (e.g. per Police Station or District)?[/quote]

Definitely up in silver spring.  Council members were forced to show the numbers after being grilled:

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2023/01/13/residents-call-for-more-policing-say-they-feel-unsafe-during-white-oak-listening-session/

DMV has descended into lawlessness.

[/quote]

I don't know, looking at the available 2011-2021 data for Fairfax County, using individual categories (vs. the larger parent categories of crime against persons, property, or society) and just the raw numbers (not adjusted for population growth):

[u]There have been some increases:[/u]
- [b]Extortion[/b] is up ~1000% since 2011, but still a fairly rare thing
- [b]Pornography[/b] is up ~200% since 2011
- [b]Motor Vehicle Theft[/b] up ~40-50% in 2020/21
- [b]Fraud[/b] grew 2011-2015 and has stayed flat at that new level since
- [b]Homicides[/b] are technically at a high point as of 2021 (with 21 total, matching 2017), but the numbers are so low in this category it's hard to tell signal/noise
- [b]Assault[/b] is up very slightly in recent years, but &lt;10%, and basically in line with where it was before

It's mostly decreases:
- [b]Gambling, Arson, Burglary, Vandalism, Stolen Property, and Embezzlement[/b] have all pretty steadily declined over 11 years
- [b]Larceny[/b] dropped about 10% from 2016 to 2018 and has maintained the lower level
- [b]Prostitution[/b] rose 2011-2016, then fell off a cliff (168 in 2016, only 8 in 2021)
- [b]Robbery[/b] was slightly up 2015/16, but has steadily dropped since
- [b]Drug Offenses[/b] dropped sharply 2020/21, presumably due to change in decriminalization of simple marijuana possession
- [b]Robbery[/b] and [b]Counterfeiting[/b] had a little spike upwards in roughly 2013-2017 timeframe, but have since dropped to lowest levels in 11 years

A few others aren't meaningfully changed, but the other thing to keep in mind is that the population has grown over this period, so steady-state or even a small increase in total crimes over the time period could still reflect a decrease in the crime [i]rate[/i] since the denominator has increased.

[u]In aggregate, over past 10 years:[/u]
- Crime rate against persons is down 1.5%
- Crime rate against property is down 17.75%
- Crime rate against society is down 58.25%

There was no notable overall reversion of those trends in 2021. I wonder if 2022 numbers will be available soon and tell us anything different, but it's fair to say there's no evidence to support the claim that the crime rate is significantly up recently, at least in Fairfax County... the only one that seems noteworthy in the upward direction recently IMO is Motor Vehicle Theft.[/quote]

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