NEWS RELEASE
DETAILS:
The City of Oxnard is pleased to report a decrease in reported crime for the fourth consecutive year. Specifically, the number of crimes reported in the City of Oxnard in 2019 was 14.9% lower than 2018.
The Department of Justice’s Uniformed Crime Reporting (“UCR”) Program collects crime statistics from 17,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The Oxnard Police Department has been tracking its UCR statistics for nearly 50 years. The statistics are classified into eight “Part One” crimes, which are broken into two categories – violent crime and property crime. Here are the statistics from 2019, with a comparison to 2018:
In looking at the two crime categories, property crimes fell by 15.8% in 2019. Violent crime is down by 9.4%.
There were 14 homicides in Oxnard in 2019, equal to 2018. Detectives cleared eight of 2019’s homicide cases with arrests, with an additional seven cases from previous years. When combined, more homicide cases were cleared than occurred, creating a clearance rate of 107% in 2019. A more detailed explanation is listed in the attachment of this news release.
Oxnard’s 9.4% violent crime decrease was largely due to the reduction of robberies, having 52 less than the previous year. Through crime analysis staff and careful review of data, the department’s investigative and field units worked together to aggressively address robbery crime trends, as well as investigate those persons who were known to commit multiple robberies.
Property crimes were reduced by an overall 15.8%. The largest property crime category decrease was motor vehicle theft at 25.3%, followed by larceny, at 16.3%. The Oxnard Police Department continued to focus on property crime prevention efforts, and believes that this effort significantly contributed to the decrease.
Motor vehicle theft has been a historic problem, and detectives addressed this in a number of ways. Specifically, the property crimes detectives reinstated the Oxnard Police Auto Theft Task Force, and assigned an additional detective to focus on auto theft enforcement, using Intelligence-Led Policing strategies. Additionally, by focusing on prolific offenders, including monitoring, enhanced enforcement, probation searches, crime mapping, and partnerships with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, along with the Ventura County Auto Theft Task Force, the Oxnard Police Department was able to reduce motor vehicle theft.
Police Chief Scott Whitney said, “We work very hard to reduce crime and make our city safer. We’re focused and smart in our efforts. We focus on violent offenders and frequent offenders. We respond quickly to crime trends and we rely on the trust and respect we have established within our neighborhoods to work closely with our residents.”
DATE / TIME PREPARED: February 27, 2020, 1:00 pm