Police can’t explain it. Sociologists can’t explain it. Economists can’t explain it. But it’s true.

Nationally, crime rates have dropped the past two years, even as the country suffers through a deep recession.

In Waco, the picture is better, too, with plummeting crime rates in both 2008 and 2009. But whether it’s Waco or the national crime rate, experts are having a hard time figuring out why fewer people are breaking the law.

“The fact that the crime rates are going down when the economy goes down, that just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Baylor University economics professor Tom Kelly said.

Likewise, Baylor sociology professor Sung Joon Jang said that “explaining, or even predicting, crime trends is really, really tricky business. . . . It’s difficult to not only predict but also hard to say even in hindsight.”

Jang said sociologists and criminologists face the same problems when analyzing crime data.

“There are so many things at work that make it almost impossible to come up with a really solid explanation, so what criminologists usually talk about is the best guess. In general, ‘What is the best guess?’ ” Jang said.

Nationally, property crimes fell by 6.1 percent and violent crimes by 4.4 percent in the first half of 2009, according to the FBI’s uniform crime report. The murder rate dropped 10 percent in the first six months of 2009, the most recent national figures available.

During that same time frame in Waco, the drop was even more significant. Property crimes dropped 11.2 percent in the first six months of 2009, and murders fell nearly 43 percent.

For all of 2009, property crimes in Waco dropped nearly 3.5 percent from the 2008 tally — 8,142 reported incidents versus 8,435 in 2008. Those crimes include burglary of vehicles, habitations, buildings and machines; robberies; thefts and fraud; and stolen vehicles.

The murder rate in Waco fell 27.3 percent in 2009 from 2008, from 11 cases to eight.

Waco police, like police all across the country, are hesitant to take all the credit for falling crime rates, much as they are disinclined to take the blame when crime increases.

Waco Police Department Sgt. Melvin Roseborough is also at a loss to explain why crime in Waco has gone down during difficult financial times. He pointed to several possible contributors, including new equipment and technology and the possibility that people being out of work could mean more people in their homes, watching their neighborhoods.

But those were just guesses, he said. For the most part, Roseborough said, policing tends to be “reactive.”

“We usually come along after the fact (when a crime is reported),” Roseborough said. “But there is more technology available to citizens, too, like alarms and ways of protecting their vehicles and homes. Like with car thefts, there’s more technology available to prevent cars from being stolen in the first place.

“So, does that have anything to do with it? I’d say it probably does, but I’m not an expert on that.”

Roseborough said he hasn’t heard Waco police talking about any particular crimes being up or down.

“For us, it’s pretty much been business as usual,” he said.

The relative stability of Waco’s economy, Kelly said, is another possible factor. He noted that in 2008 more than $400 million in bond issues were passed, which led to job creation in the construction industry, which “has kind of helped as a stabilizer in our economy.”

“In Waco, we had two things,” Kelly said. “One, the bubble didn’t build up and it didn’t break. At the same time, all these other building projects kicked in.”

But in the end, Kelly said falling crime rates in troubled economic times is puzzling.

“Maybe crime prevention is improving,” he said. “Maybe there’s more community-based policing. Or, maybe there’s just a general attitude of, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together,’ and everybody’s worse off, except the rich bankers on Wall Street, which doesn’t affect Waco.

“I can’t explain exactly what it’s all about, but I know there’s a lot of different elements that probably come into play.”

twoods@wacotrib.com

757-5721

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