Although crime is at historic lows in Rochester, the recent spate of shootings
and a not-insignificant jump in robberies has many people worried. During a
recent budget hearing, City Council member Jackie Ortiz said that Rochester
feels like a war zone.
Another area where Rochester has
had trouble is burglaries. According to the RPD's
annual report, burglaries climbed steadily from 2008 to 2010 (data from 2011
was not available). There were 2,808 burglaries in 2008; 2,899 in 2009; and
3,448 in 2010.
The Center for Public Safety Initiatives at the Rochester Institute of Technology
has done an analysis (above) of Rochester's
2009 and 2010 burglary arrests. It's different to discern patterns from only a
two-year study, but the information is interesting.
Burglars, in general, are lazy, the report says, and tend to commit their crimes
within walking distance of their own homes. That's most likely because they
know the layout of the area, the report says, and they won't stick out.
"In some cases, friends and family are even fair game," the report says.
Generally, the arrested burglars traveled between 1.7 miles and 2.1 miles from
their homes to the crime scene.
Also interesting: although 399 people were arrested for
burglary in Rochester in 2009 and 2010, there were 6,347 burglary reports, meaning that
less than 10 percent of the reports resulted in arrests. That sounds
bad, but it's on par with the national average, which is about 12.4 percent for
those same years.
Add the low clearance rate to the fact that approximately 50 percent of
burglaries are not reported to police, according to the CPSI report, and the
problem suddenly becomes much larger.