ALBANY — In monthly crime statistic updates, crime for October was down by more than 9 percent from last October in the city, while county numbers for the month were slightly higher than last year, officials say.
In their presentations to their respective commissions, the head of the Albany Police Department and the Dougherty County Police Department each reported significant decreases in Part 1 violent crimes year to year for the month of October.
Those crimes — homicide, robbery, forcible rape and aggravated assault — were down more than 66.6 percent in Dougherty County, Chief Don Cheek said Monday.
In the city, violent crime was down 16.4 percent between the two Octobers, APD Chief John Proctor said in his presentation to the City Commission on Nov. 24.
Of note for the city, October robberies were down 47 percent from the previous year.
Property crimes continued to drop citywide, with auto theft numbers topping the list of most improved stats, down nearly 40 percent.
As a whole, the city was down on property crimes — which include arson, burglary, auto theft and larceny — by more than 8 percent.
In Dougherty County, property crimes were another story, Cheek said.
The county saw double-digit percentage increases in both its burglary and larceny numbers — figures that are deceptive given the small numbers.
For instance, burglaries were up 30.7 percent in the county, but that translates only into four additional incidents from October 2008.
Like the city, Dougherty County’s car theft rate was down 20 percent — or one theft less — from last year.
Also,, the october 2009 numbers are trending downward in most categories from the same month in 2007 numbers, documents show.
Comparing October 2009 to October 2007, Dougherty County has 29 percent less violent crime and 5.4 percent less property crime.
Making the same comparison for the city of Albany, violent crimes are up 1.4 percent based largely on an increase of four aggravated assaults in 2009.
Property crimes between October 2009 and October 2007 are down 20 percent in the city, documents show.
Additionally, the number of cases that the city of Albany has closed have gone up.
The department has closed 38 percent of its violent crime cases, which is up from 35 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 2007.
Closed property crime cases have dipped slightly, to 14 percent from 17 percent in 2008 and 15 percent in 2007.
Year to date, the violent crime in the city is down 22.7 percent from the first 10 months of 2008 and property crime is down 17 percent, documents show.
Other statistics provided by the county show that, for the month of October, 649 total traffic tickets were written with 692 warnings issued.