SLO gets safer as reports of rape, violent crime and home burglaries fall, police say
Reported crime was down overall in the city of San Luis Obispo in 2019, including drops in categories such as rape, according to the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
The agency presented its annual crime report for incidents that occurred in 2019 to the San Luis Obispo Obispo City Council on Tuesday night.
The report also covered other topics such as department staffing, community outreach, number of calls for service, homelessness, downtown safety and traffic collisions.
After significant increases in crime in 2015 and 2016, the department says successes in community policing efforts — such as the Community Action Team (CAT) that works with the city’s chronically homeless population — have begun to show positive results.
In addition, the department for the first time in several years became fully staffed in June 2019, although a few officers still remained in training at the time.
Those additional police officers will be assigned to specialized positions such as motorcycle patrol, CAT and downtown bicycle officers. Those positions were previously unfilled.
“Having these specialty positions filled will drastically increase the amount of proactive policing that occurs in the community,” the report reads.
Violent and property crimes decrease in SLO
The end of 2019 saw a 0.5% decrease in violent crime and a 4% decrease in property crime, for a total 4% decrease in crime overall, the department reports.
The city had experienced an “unprecedented” increase in crime in 2015, jumping 21% from 2014, and that trend continued in 2016, which saw an 11% increase from 2015.
Residential burglaries significantly decreased in 2019, from 164 in 2018 to 104 in 2019, a decrease of 37%. That follows a 59% increase in 2018 from the previous year.
Commercial burglaries, however, increased 116%, from 80 reported commercial burglaries in 2018 to 173 in 2019.
However, the report says that 79 of 2019’s burglaries were related to four separate incidents at storage units or multi-building locations. California Department of Justice reporting requirements mean that each storage unit, shed or structure must be reported individually, even if they were burglarized as part of the same incident.
Without those requirements, last year’s commercial burglaries would have represented an increase of 18%, the report says.
Robberies remained mostly the same with 34 reports over 2018’s 33 reports. Aggravated assaults went up 11%, with 114 reported aggravated assaults in 2019 over the previous year’s 103 reports.
Property crime was down overall — though reported thefts from a vehicle went up by two to 434 incidents — and stolen vehicles remained exactly the same with 74. General thefts went down 10% from 1,061 in 2018 to 953.
In 2019, the police department says it had success with “intelligence led policing efforts,” including the hire of a crime analyst. (The position that transitioned to full-time in early 2019.) That analyst focused the department’s resources on high-crime areas and frequent offenders, as well as how to evaluate which strategies are working, which the report says has helped reduce crime.
“Sound public safety analysis has been paramount to our success,” the report reads.
Rape and sexual assault reports down
San Luis Obispo for years has consistently shown high numbers of reported rapes. The department received 52 reports of rapes in 2018, compared with 37 the previous year — a 41% increase.
But throughout 2019, the city saw a significant decrease of 24% in the number of reported rapes from 2018, with 39 reports.
“Generally associated with more awareness and willingness for victims to report issues, the #MeToo movement is largely thought to have resulted in more sexual assaults being reported and thus a large increase in crimes,” the report says. “The positive impact was that the victims of sexual assault and rape were far more likely to report their attacks to police than in previous years.”
Still, sexual assault and rape remains one of the most underrated crimes, with as much as 90% of victims of those crimes on college campuses not reporting them.
City sees drop in calls related to homelessness
The police department continued to receive complaints and calls for service in 2019 regarding “adverse homeless behavior” in the downtown, the report says, as well as reported homeless encampments.
Calls for service pertaining to homeless individuals in 2019 — including contacts as suspects, victims, or witnesses — contacts decreased roughly 7% from 2018, to 559 contacts.
Homeless calls for service had risen each year, with the exception of 2014, from 4,307 calls in 2012 to a high of 7,591 calls in 2018. Homelessness-related calls for service in 2012 accounted for 14% of all calls for service, and that number had risen each year to a high in 2018 of 23%.
That percentage dropped for the first time since 2012, 22%. The city believes its messaging to residents that “being homeless or being in a group of transients in a space open to the public is not a crime” has helped reduce the number of frivolous calls.
The department’s overall calls for service dropped 3% in 2019 to 31,376 calls. Calls for service in the downtown core for daytime activity decreased by 14% and 17% for nightime activity.
The department says that after the first full year of operation for its CAT Team — which includes pairing a patrol officer with a clinical social worker from Transitions Mental Health Association —the downtown saw a 16% decrease over 2018 in total calls for service and a 12% reduction in calls for service related to homeless individuals, the report says.
Traffic collisions, DUI arrests up in city
Vehicle collisions increased by 12% in San Luis Obispo in 2019, with an 11% increase in pedestrian-related crashes and a decrease of 18% in collisions involving bicycles, the report says.
The department says that the reduction in bicycle collisions in 2019 correlates to the increased messaging that started in 2018, particularly around schools.
In 2019, there was an 18% decrease in traffic citations issued and a 9% decrease in warnings given to motorists, according to the report. There were 8,853 traffic stops completed, compared to 10,224 in 2018.
DUI arrests decreased by 31% in 2019, from 329 to 226, the report states.
The new officers in training, along with the surge in popularity of ride-share services and the implementation of downtown loading zones contributed to the decreases, police said.
SLO Police Department fully staffed
For the first time in recent history, the department is fully staffed, having achieve the peaking staffing numbers in June, the report says.
At the beginning of fiscal year 2019-2020, police staffing was at 91.5 full-time employees, an increase of four full-time employees.
The department also added a downtown-based patrol sergeant and a civilian field services technician.
In the first five months since September 2019, those two positions responded to 367 calls for service, took primary responsibility for 171 of those calls and wrote 80 reports, the report says.
But the department also lost approximately 13,420 hours of staff time due to illness, vacation, on-duty injuries and other causes — an equivalent of a loss of almost seven officers for the year, the report says.
The average uniformed officer handles roughly 900 calls for service per year, assuming full staffing levels — or approximately 1,100 calls per years when adjusted for lost time, the department reports.
