Although violent crime was up last year nationwide, Greensboro Police Chief Brian James had some good news for the City Council at the council retreat on Thursday, March 24 about violent crime in Greensboro.
James noted that homicides in Greensboro were down 15 percent in 2021 compared to 2020. He said that while the reduction was not as much as the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) and the City Council wanted, when you considered that violent crime continued to increase across the country, it was a significant reduction.
James said that the strategy of combining multiple units throughout the GPD to work together appeared to be having an effect. He said, “Primarily we are at the right places, at the right times and talking to the right people.”
Rapes in 2021 were also down 15 percent, aggravated assault with a firearm was down 17 percent, and robbery with a firearm was down 18 percent.
Robbery was up 7 percent and, in a misleading statistic, aggravated assault was up 30 percent from 2020 to 2021.
It is misleading statistic as Councilmember Tammi Thurm pointed out because in 2021 the FBI decided to include child abuse cases as aggravated assault cases. Previously child abuse cases were in a separate category.
James said that he would see if the child abuse cases could be backed out of the aggravated assault figures in order to compare the aggravated assault cases from 2020 with those from 2021.
James also noted that while homicides were down in 2021 compared to 2020, the five year average for homicides in Greensboro was 45 per year, and that 2021 was above that average.
James said that the effort to get more guns off the street was continuing to be a success and that in 2021 the GPD seized 1,772 firearms, which was a 41 percent increase over 2020 when 1,261 firearms were seized.
Nice comparison to the highest crime year ever!
Cure Violence
Can we please stop pretending that crime rates being lower than our all time record high is a win for Greensboro? Compare crime rates to our 5 year and 10 year averages. When you get the rates below those two numbers, then we can say we are doing better.
It is interesting what one can do while playing with statistics. Think about that a minute.
82.39% of all statistics are made up.
I heard the most common statistic is 99.9%
It doesn’t really fit the nutter narrative of Democrat leadership causes more crime when other cities have increasing rates crime compared to our decline. Even if off a high year which assumably is similar for many cities given the effects of the opioid crisis.
Hey Chris, have you taken a college level statistics class? The first thing they teach is how to manipulate statistics. I am not a “nutter” because I can read. The appropriate comparison would be for the past five years. Then you can throw out the “spike” year and see how 2021 compares to other years. The one statistic the city council almost never discusses who what demographic makes up most of the homicides in Greensboro. That might waken the voters in certain districts who may realize their representation does nothing for them.
Is violent crime actually down, uhhhh no.
Reported violent crimes and those that they actually got called to are down. Also the magistrates often reduce things to lesser charges and kick offenders right back to the curb to sin again. The system is pathetic. Don’t believe it? Spend a while volunteering at the jail & the blind shall see.
Cracks me up to see the hoops you jump through to keep your silly narrative alive.
Cracks me up that you believe everything the left prints. I’ll bet you get up every morning bend over and stick your head up your rear end because that’s where someone on CNN said that the sun rises