Lawrence Police Department

Lawrence Police Capt. Anthony Brixius concedes the city’s latest crime statistics for 2016 don’t reflect the image many residents may have of their community.

“I don’t think we are a sleepy college town,” Brixius said.

A quick reading of the statistics in the Lawrence Police Department report may indicate Lawrence is a town with an exploding violent crime rate. The number of violent crimes reported in 2016 — incidents such as homicide, rape, robbery, battery and aggravated assault — rose to 335 incidents. That’s up from 234 in 2015, which is an increase of 43 percent.

A more detailed reading of the numbers, however, raises the question of whether violent crime was unnaturally high in Lawrence in 2016 or unnaturally low for the previous two years. For example, the 335 violent crimes in 2016 were still lower than the 370 in 2012 and comparable to the 329 incidents in 2013.

“What we are seeing is a little bit closer to the historical rate,” Brixius said. “We may have just seen some very lean years. Violent crime rates went down nationally (in 2014 and 2015), but ours went down at a much steeper rate. So maybe we were a little fortunate.”

However you read the number, Brixius said it is clear Lawrence has some crime issues that go beyond typical small towns.

“Some of the events we see are more associated with urban areas,” Brixius said. “Now we don’t have that level of crime, but we do see that association both within our own population and traveling populations.”

The crime numbers the police department is studying are not the official FBI or KBI crime statistics for 2016. Those will come later. The department compiled the report for its annual submission to the Benchmark City Survey, which tracks crime trends from a coalition of 30 U.S. municipal police departments.

The Lawrence report, though, looks at a host of significant crime categories, both violent and nonviolent in nature. The report found that overall crime was down from 3,727 incidents in 2015 to 3,591 incidents in 2016. That’s a drop of about 4 percent.

Those numbers support the comments that Douglas County Sheriff Ken McGovern and Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson have made in connection with capacity issues at the Douglas County Jail. The two men said although overall crime is down in the county, serious felony crimes have increased.

The district attorney’s office in 2014 charged 340 defendants with violent felony crimes involving at least one victim. That number increased to 459 in 2015 and remained steady at 450 cases in 2016.

Drug-fueled crimes?

None of the data indicates what is driving the increase in person crimes, but Branson said his office has witnessed an increase in one particular type of case. That would be home invasions in which the victim, perhaps a college student, was selling marijuana or other recreational drugs, often to subsidize the person’s own use.

The seller usually has one or two degrees of separation from hardcore felons, who see the seller as an easy mark for money and drugs, Branson said.

About half the perpetrators are from out of town, Branson said.

Brixius agreed robberies involving narcotics dealers are “quite common.”

“When you think about the sale of narcotics, you think of money, drugs and guns,” he said. “Those things have value for a person associated with criminal activity. I certainly can’t say it would account for all of the increase, but I would agree that robberies of houses associated with narcotic deals are pretty common.”

Branson’s estimate that 50 percent of the dealer-related robberies are committed by those from outside the community highlights another factor influencing crime in Lawrence, Brixius said. The city’s proximity and easy access to Topeka and Kansas City make some spillover crime inevitable, he said.

From conversation with investigators, that includes the recurrence of local gang activity that has been absent from Lawrence since the 1990s, he said.

“I certainly wouldn’t say the criminal activity we have is because of other cities, but we are seeing some correlation because of proximity,” he said. “We are seeing narcotic and gang activity that is associated with some of the activities in our neighboring cities and has ties to some of those cities. There’s gang associations with people from neighboring cities, and certainly when you see that you start to see recruitment of local individuals. I wouldn’t consider gang activity we are seeing now as a high amount, but we are seeing an increase.”

Clearance rates

Despite the increase in violent crime, the report does have good news about the effectiveness of the Lawrence Police Department’s focus on violent crime.

The focus is reflected in the clearance rates listed on the report, Brixius said. Clearance of an incident is defined as when an arrest is made or a decision not to prosecute is made. The percentage rate of clearance for all person crimes increased from the mid-30s to low-40 percent rates in 2011 through 2013 to 57 percent in 2016. The percentage clearance rate for aggravated assault and battery, which were in the low- to mid-40 percent range from 2011 to 2013, was 67.5 percent in 2016.

“Historically we have put a lot of resources into violent crime,” Brixius said. “That is where our focus is. Unless it gets to a very, very high level, it’s not typical that a detective would investigate a property crime. They are primarily focused on person crimes. As a whole, our philosophy is that violent crime has to be investigated to the fullest. We put a great deal of resources into them right away, because if we wait too long, the chances of solving them goes down.”

One resource the department throws at violent crime is a special unit that focuses on the city’s most troublesome offenders, Brixius said.

“That unit is tasked with identifying people who might be associated with drug activity in terms of sales or individuals who are frequently associated with crime of a violent nature,” he said. “Part of their task is to do investigations that lead to prosecution. Gang members could certainly fall into that.”

The clearance rates for property crimes in Lawrence tell a different story, though. In 2016, the clearance rate for vandalism was 28.3 percent; 23.6 percent for theft, 15.5 percent for vehicle theft and 6.6 percent for theft from a vehicle.

“You can see we’re pretty low on property crimes,” Brixius said. “Our focus is on violent crime. We don’t have the resources to do both.”

How resources at the department are deployed in the future likely will be a topic of conversation in coming months. The city is in the process of hiring a new police chief, as Chief Tarik Khatib leaves the position later this month. Brixius is set to become the interim chief on June 25. City Manager Tom Markus interviewed four finalists for the police chief position last week. A new chief is expected to take over in late summer or early fall.