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Bay Area Saw Fewer Violent Crimes In '06

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By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 25, 2007

Updated: 09/25/2007 06:16 pm

TAMPA - The latest federal crime statistics and a criminologist's independent analysis offer some good news about violent crime in the Bay area.

According to the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report, released Monday, there were fewer violent crimes reported in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater last year compared with all of 2005.

The area's crime rate also ranks comparatively low when calculated using population.

The FBI each year collects information about seven violent and property crimes from participating law enforcement agencies nationwide. The violent crimes are murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and robbery. The property crimes are burglary, larceny and auto theft.

The federal crime report shows the number of violent crimes dropped 18 percent in Tampa, 4 percent in St. Petersburg and 13 percent in Clearwater last year.

Criminology professor Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis placed this crime drop into a larger context. Rosenfeld and other criminologists released their rankings today of 300 metropolitan statistical areas and violent crime rates, calculated from the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

On this list, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area ranks 37th out of 300, or in the top 12 percent, with 709.2 violent crimes per 100,000 people. This area also includes Largo.

In sheer population size, however, this area ties Baltimore-Towson, Md., as the 15th largest, with 2.7 million people.

On Rosenfeld's ranking, the Memphis area has the highest violent crime rate per 100,000 residents. Gainesville ranked 7th. Orlando-Kissimmee tied at 13th. Tallahassee ranked 26th. Panama City-Lynn Haven ranked 29th, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach ranked 31st.

The full list is available at www.crimetrends.com/id4.html.

Rosenfeld said he prefers to compare areas from the FBI's report instead of individual cities because the larger areas include suburban populations.

Rosenfeld and his colleagues also adjusted the homicide rates of 65 cities, including Tampa and St. Petersburg, based on these crime-influencing factors: unemployment, poverty, racial composition and female-headed households.

With the adjusted ranking, Tampa has fewer homicides "than one might expect given the conditions there," while St. Petersburg has just what the criminologists expected, Rosenfeld said.

According to the FBI's report, the rate of violent crime nationwide rose for the second straight year. It is the third lowest total in the past two decades.

Local cities showed increases among individual categories of violent crime. Tampa had 25 homicides last year, compared with 20 the previous year, the statistics show. The number of homicides dropped in St. Petersburg, from 30 in 2005 to 21 in 2006, and in Clearwater, from nine in 2005 to four in 2006.

Tampa and St. Petersburg each recorded an increase in robberies, 4 percent in Tampa and 7 percent in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg also recorded a 10 percent increase in the number of rapes.

The FBI statistics do not match exactly the statistics released this year by the Tampa police because of classification differences in two categories.

The Tampa police Web site reports in 2006 there were 158 sexual batteries – which include rape, sodomy and fondling – and 2,445 aggravated assaults.

The FBI classifies sodomy and fondling as "aggravated assault," so the federal agency's statistics show 133 rapes reported in Tampa and 2,470 aggravated assaults, a police spokeswoman said.

Reporter Josh Poltilove contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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