Report: Crime in Davenport drops in 2006

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By Kurt Allemier | Thursday, April 19, 2007 12:28 AM CDT | () comments

Along with uniformed officers, records clerks and software analysts helped bring down Davenport’s crime in 2006.

Davenport Mayor Ed Winborn and Police Chief Mike Bladel touted new statistics Wednesday that showed crime was down 10.6 percent from 2005 to 2006. They pointed to better training for records clerks in how to classify crimes and an improved records management system as bringing down the statistics so significantly.

The police department tracked 3,200 crime reports from 2006 under both the new and old systems. Under the previous system, crime was down 5.2 percent in Davenport. The new system was implemented after a review by the city in consultation with the Iowa Department of Public Safety and FBI.

“Crime was actually down before the review,” said Tanisha Briley, management analyst for Davenport who worked on the statistical review. “It is important to note that crime was already down overall.”

The crime statistics include numbers of homicides, forcible rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larceny/thefts, motor vehicle thefts, and arson. They are reported to the Department of Public Safety, then on to the FBI for national crime statistic reporting.

Though the numbers show less crime in the city, Bladel admits a rash of shootings from mid-March to early April can skew perceptions.

“There is always going to be a gap between the reality of crime and the fear of crime,” he said. “Hopefully with this type of process, that the community understands there is a downtrend in violent crime in Davenport.

“We are hoping to narrow the gap between the fear of crime and the probability of crime,” Bladel said.

One of the biggest changes brought about by the review was how to define an aggravated assault, matching standards set by the state and FBI. Under the new system, 46.3 percent fewer aggravated assaults were reported in 2006 than the previous year.

Previously, a crime was considered an aggravated assault if a person required medical treatment, no matter how minor the injury. Under the new definition, an aggravated assault must result in a “long-term injury with need for recovery,” Bladel said.

Bladel recognized a need to review the crime statistics reporting process within less than a month after being named police chief in 2000. The department and city couldn’t get state and federal officials to meet at the same time to discuss issues faced by Davenport until last year.

“We’d check with the state of Iowa one day, the federal government the next day, and our own staff the next day and we kept coming up with good answers but couldn’t mesh together as a system,” he said. “We had to get clear classifications of what an aggravated assault is, what crime is in the city of Davenport, and get in the same alignment with the rest of the state.”

The new crime classifications should now match those used by other cities across the state, and nationally.

“We have crime in the city of Davenport, but the majority of assaults are from known assailants,” Bladel said. “There are very few stranger assaults in Davenport as there are in most places. the severity of them aren’t to the point where they should be reported on a national level.”

Kurt Allemeier can be contacted at (563) 383-2360 or kallemeier@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at www.qctimes.com.