07-19-2017, 03:08 AM
According to Police Lt. Miles Chong, who heads the Criminal Investigations Section of Hawaii County Area One (Hamakua-Hilo-Puna), the number of burglary and robbery incidents island-wide actually declined in the 2015-16 fiscal year, the most recent for which statistics are available. Car thefts were up, but only after declining the year before.
“We don’t have anything substantial to indicate that there’s a structured criminal organization involved in these crimes.” Chong said. “Offenders just associate themselves with a few acquaintances or family members.”
Mitch Roth estimated that the number of individuals perpetrating the current spike in vehicle thefts was relatively low — perhaps as few as 55 suspects. Of those, he said, several were already in custody and arrest warrants had been written for others.
Online commenters almost routinely assume that thefts are drug-related; comment threads on Big Island Thieves are frequently laced with “damned tweakers,” “meth heads,” and similar epithets.
But Chong noted that while some cars are stripped for parts, “A lot of time they’re just run to the ground and abandoned….We suspect they’re just taking them for a joy ride.”
I happened to go to one of the HPP swap meets and stopped by the crime watchers table. They had a lot of historical data and I had been "hearing about a lot of crime". After looking at their data I realized it was mostly hype. I've noticed that a lot of small communities tend to have substantial fears of crime and it often gets worse if the average age of the members is higher. While the age relationship is just my informal observation, as I posted before, there is a new study that shows the fear of crime is contagious. Inoculate yourself a little.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/...rime-maths
“We don’t have anything substantial to indicate that there’s a structured criminal organization involved in these crimes.” Chong said. “Offenders just associate themselves with a few acquaintances or family members.”
Mitch Roth estimated that the number of individuals perpetrating the current spike in vehicle thefts was relatively low — perhaps as few as 55 suspects. Of those, he said, several were already in custody and arrest warrants had been written for others.
Online commenters almost routinely assume that thefts are drug-related; comment threads on Big Island Thieves are frequently laced with “damned tweakers,” “meth heads,” and similar epithets.
But Chong noted that while some cars are stripped for parts, “A lot of time they’re just run to the ground and abandoned….We suspect they’re just taking them for a joy ride.”
I happened to go to one of the HPP swap meets and stopped by the crime watchers table. They had a lot of historical data and I had been "hearing about a lot of crime". After looking at their data I realized it was mostly hype. I've noticed that a lot of small communities tend to have substantial fears of crime and it often gets worse if the average age of the members is higher. While the age relationship is just my informal observation, as I posted before, there is a new study that shows the fear of crime is contagious. Inoculate yourself a little.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/...rime-maths