SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — We’ve heard a lot lately about the rise in violent crime, but a new report shows it’s actually going down in the City of South Fulton.
According to 2021 crime data released from the City of South Fulton Police Department, overall violent crime dropped 17% from 2020.
The report shows murders remained unchanged, with 20 in both 2020 and 2021.
The city had 18 rapes in 2020 and 17 rapes in 2021. That's a 6% decrease.
"We just make sure that when we have those types of cases, we just make sure we're investigating them thoroughly, and we're making arrests. As far as homicides, we had a 98% clearance rate in 2020," said Sgt. Ebony Bullock, a crime analyst with the City of South Fulton Police.
The city had 454 aggravated assaults in 2020 and 353 in 2021, which is a 22% decrease. Police report 84 robberies in 2020 and 70 in 2021. That's a 17% decrease.
"We just try to saturate the area to make sure that we are present in those areas and also by keeping track of the offenders who may live in those areas who have been previously arrested for like robberies or anything like that," Bullock said.
Police use data and statistics to better utilize resources and target areas with high crime.
"We use various programs, but basically we look at those weekly crime reports that are put together by Sgt. Bullock, and we call it a CompStat report," Capt. Marcus Dennard said.
Police Captain Marcus Dennard said those CompStat reports break down information for specific crimes, such as when and where they're happening.
Police plot that data on a map, and then they deploy officers to those areas at targeted times.
"We'll also look at areas where cars are being dumped, say for instance stolen vehicles," Dennard said. "We'll look at those areas and analyze those areas because usually in those areas the perps aren't staying too far from where they dump these vehicles."
In 2022, South Fulton Police plan on getting more computer software to continue analyzing crime trends.
"Our chief loves technology, so we're always growing," Dennard said. "We're never sitting around and watching crime happen. We're getting to the point where we react to crime and actually try to predict when crime is going to happen."
The new data also shows auto thefts decreased from 508 in 2020 to 472 in 2021, thefts went down from 1,457 in 2020 to 1,365 in 2021, thefts from vehicles decreased from 563 in 2020 to 161 in 2021, and burglaries went down from 255 in 2020 to 161 in 2021.