Seal Beach crime down 17 percent in 2013

Serious crime dropped 17 percent in Seal Beach last year, according to figures recently released by the Seal Beach Police Department.

The 2013 decrease in serious or “Part 1” crimes was a significant improvement over 2012, when crime overall decreased 6 percent and over 2011, when crime decreased just 5 percent.

In 2013, larceny decreased by 21 percent. Larceny includes all forms of theft except burglary and robbery. In 2012, larceny increased by 7 percent.

Thefts from cars, historically among the most commonly reported crimes, went down 18 percent in 2013. In 2012,

Only thefts of cars and robberies increased—with car thefts increasing by 50 percent and robberies increasing by 40 percent.

When you look at crime statistics, remember to keep the following things in mind:

  • The figures only report the number of crimes reported to or discovered by the police.
  • The figures only reflect crime reports that the police consider valid.
  • The figures provided do not distinguish between solved and unsolved crimes.

A “zero percent” change in figures means that the same number of crimes were documented last year as were documented the year before.

Also remember that a “percentage” can be misleading without actual numbers.

For example, there was one report of a theft by pickpocket in 2013. There were zero such reports in 2012—making the single pocket picking of 2013 a 100 percent increase over the previous year.

Most crimes decrease

Last year there were 521 serious or “Part 1” crimes reported to or discovered by the police in Seal Beach. That was a 17 percent decrease from the 627 crimes documented in 2012.

The serious crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, burglary, automobile theft and other kinds of larceny.

There were no homicides reported in 2013, a zero percent change from 2012. There was one rape reported in Seal Beach last year, the same number reported in 2012.

There were seven robberies in Seal Beach in 2013, two more than in 2012 but statistically a 40 percent increase.

There were 36 automobile thefts documented in Seal Beach last year, up 12 from the 24 documented in 2012, which represented a 50 percent increase.

Assaults were down 17 percent, burglaries 20 percent and larceny down 21 percent.

Larceny down

There are nine sub-categories of theft that are classified as “larceny” in crime statistics.

All sub-categories of larceny decreased in 2013.

As reported earlier, there was only one pocketpicking incident last year. There were no purse snatchings documented in Seal Beach in 2013, a zero percent change from 2012.

Shoplifting decreased 6 percent, thefts from vehicles decreased 18 percent, theft of vehicle parts decreased 15 percent, bicycle thefts decreased 47 percent, thefts from buildings decreased 27 percents, there were no thefts from coin machines in 2013 (a zero percent change from 2012) and there was a 20 percent decrease in all other kinds of larceny.

Last week, in a Letter to the Editor (“Largest crime in Seal Beach is preventable,” Thursday, Jan. 16), Police Chief Joe Stilinovich said that Seal Beach’s largest crime, theft from vehicles, was preventable.

“We can stop this by doing two simple things:

Lock your car when you leave it (even if it’s just for a minute).

Remove all valuables from your car when unattended,” Stilinovich said.

There were 103 thefts from vehicles reported to the police in 2013. There were 125 thefts from vehicles reported in 2012.