Robberies and burglaries up in SW Austin 2007 vs 2008

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Could be that they have been doing it for years. It's a hard truth to swallow that now you have to keep stuff locked up. Didn't used to be like that.

Yes, my next door neighbor who has lived here all his life keeps his garage door open most of the time. I lived in the old capitol hill area of Denver for several years and I keep mine doors closed and locked.

[atlanta hope]

Crime is up everywhere, not just here.

[CptnRn]

Correction on my post number 7 above, I grabbed a number out of the wrong column for zip code 78702 East Austin.

The zip codes with the highest indident numbers in town are
78753 137 686 total incidents 14,186 North I-35 Corridor
78741 241 872 total incidents 14,742 East Riverside Drive
78701 93 128 total incidents 12,790 Downtown Austin
78702 129 474 total incidents 10,301 East Austin
78704 85 605 total incidents 11,357 S. Central Austin to Ben White
78745 74 623 total incidents 10,485 S.Central Austin BenWhite to Ditmar Rd

[AGA]

Wonder why the significant jump in 78749??? Any thoughts?

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Originally Posted by AGA

Wonder why the significant jump in 78749??? Any thoughts?

What area is that?

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by AGA

Wonder why the significant jump in 78749??? Any thoughts?

I live in 78749, have for 28 years, West of MoPac. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a police car drive down my street. The only other time we see them in the area is when they are running radar speed traps.

The police all work out of the South Austin Substation which is 8 miles, 18 minutes away according to Google Maps. The area between 78749 and the substation is a much higher crime area, zip codes 78745, 78748, which I suspect consumes most of their time and attention.

Looking at the geography, the East edge of 78749 is Brodie Lane and is adjacent to the higher crime areas of South Central Austin, 78745 & 78748. Sunset Valley and the lack of Development along the West side of Brodie Lane have served as natural barriers between 78749 and the areas East of it. The South MoPac Expressway cuts 78749 in half and serves as another natural barrier. I would guess that most of the crime rate takes place East of Mopac, as those neighborhoods are immediately adjacent to the higher crime areas. Overall 78749 has very low crime rates compared to 78745 & 78748.

zip code, robbery, burglary, area description
78745, 72 630 S.Central Austin BenWhite to Ditmar Rd
78748 20 228 S. Central Austin Ditmar Rd. to Manchaca
78749 8 163 West Creek, Convict Hill, Legend Oaks

I'm making an educated guess that increases in robbery and burglary in 78749 are a result of the worsening economic pressure becoming great enough to entice criminals to look past the geographic barriers of Sunset Valley and Brodie Lane when looking for attractive targets.

I would love to see a map showing where the crimes are taking place in 78749, I think that would tell us a lot.

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

I live in 78749, have for 28 years, West of MoPac. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a police car drive down my street. The only other time we see them in the area is when they are running radar speed traps.

The police all work out of the South Austin Substation which is 8 miles, 18 minutes away according to Google Maps. The area between 78749 and the substation is a much higher crime area, zip codes 78745, 78748, which I suspect consumes most of their time and attention.

Looking at the geography, the East edge of 78749 is Brodie Lane and is adjacent to the higher crime areas of South Central Austin, 78745 & 78748. Sunset Valley and the lack of Development along the West side of Brodie Lane have served as natural barriers between 78749 and the areas East of it. The South MoPac Expressway cuts 78749 in half and serves as another natural barrier. I would guess that most of the crime rate takes place East of Mopac, as those neighborhoods are immediately adjacent to the higher crime areas. Overall 78749 has very low crime rates compared to 78745 & 78748.

zip code, robbery, burglary, area description
78745, 72 630 S.Central Austin BenWhite to Ditmar Rd
78748 20 228 S. Central Austin Ditmar Rd. to Manchaca
78749 8 163 West Creek, Convict Hill, Legend Oaks

I'm making an educated guess that increases in robbery and burglary in 78749 are a result of the worsening economic pressure becoming great enough to entice criminals to look past the geographic barriers of Sunset Valley and Brodie Lane when looking for attractive targets.

I would love to see a map showing where the crimes are taking place in 78749, I think that would tell us a lot.

Interesting comment per lack of APD sightings....it certainly DOES seem as if we don't have the police presence I've seen in other big cities....In Chicago and suburbs, even the peaceful ones, you saw them often driving around on patrol, or in convenient stores late at night taking a coffee break or donut run for a spell.......Austin doesn't spend nearly as much on the force as other cities as well, from what I understand....would be VERY interesting to see the individual cop/squad car on patrol/population ratio in Austin....
I think its simply a case of "you get what you pay for"....Austin, up to a few years ago, really WAS so safe you could leave garage doors open,
and I do recall it being extremely safe DT when I moved here....now, indeed crime is going up, but not alarming just yet.....the trend is that it COULD be alarming soon though, if the population grows, the area gets a more transient atmosphere, which always breeds crime via the anonymity factor, and if the economy locally continues to flatline and attract economic migrants..........Austin isn't what it used to be in MANY ways, crime just a part......that's why I always say that growth for the sake of growth has never been a good thing for any area/city....just too hard to manage economic/infrastructure/crime issues.....it can be done, but ONLY in a MANAGED GROWTH sense, and I couldn't define Austin's present version of such managed...bits and pieces yes, but, as a whole, no way.........and maybe its simply growing too fast the last 5-6 years for ANY public or private body to handle.....think of it...the population DOUBLED in the last 18 years, from 400K to 800K+, skirting 900K as we speak.......just too fast, and things have to run perfectly for that growth to work, which they never do........One other problem is that Austin has no real geographical barriers to growth, unlike San Diego, Portland, and such, with bodies of water and mountains to hedge it in...heck, even vegas has mountains builders have to work around...in Austin, there are none, and they just keep on building and sprawling, adding about 5K a month/60K a year to the metro.....think of it..that's about 40K more vehicles polluting and filling up our limited road system, 60K more people disposing of waste, (personal/Sewer and otherwise/landfills) a year.......and more schools, crime, and so on......

Still an open question how this growth is panning out for sure....

[CptnRn]

Looking into this further I found the crime statistics GIS page gives one a tabulation of all the crimes in the last 18 months, which can be sorted by the type of crime, block number and name.

City of Austin Crime Data

Looking at the addresses listed most of the small number of robberies, drug overdoses, assaults are
East of MoPac, or along the MoPac Service Roads, or in the apartment complexes along Monterey Oaks Blvd. and Staggerbrush Road.

Of the 186 Burglary of Residence I was able to sort the list by address, looking at streets that had multiple burglaries reported, almost all of those are East of MoPac, the few that were West of MoPac were at the apartment complexes listed above or in areas that were close to MoPac off streets that had relatively easy access from the few roads that cross from the East to the West sides of Mopac.

Most of the Burglaries are Burglary of Vehicles

2 BURG OF RES - FAM/DATING ASLT
46 BURGLARY NON RESIDENCE
5 BURGLARY OF COIN-OP MACHINE
186 BURGLARY OF RESIDENCE
536 BURGLARY OF VEH

The locations for the burglaries of vehicles were mostly East of Mopac, or businesses along 43-4600 William Cannon, apartment complexes & businesses along MoPac, apartment complexes along Monterey Oaks Blvd. and Staggerbrush Road, and the streets around West Convict Hill Road and La Concha Pass.

After all this research I now suspect that the biggest increase in burglaries has been from vehicles at the health clubs that opened in 2008 along William Cannon and MoPac and the new shopping centers like Costco.

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

What area is that?

Use the link in Post number 7 for the zip code map and input 78749, it will show you.

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

Looking into this further I found the crime statistics GIS page gives one a tabulation of all the crimes in the last 18 months, which can be sorted by the type of crime, block number and name.

City of Austin Crime Data

Looking at the addresses listed most of the small number of robberies, drug overdoses, assaults are
East of MoPac, or along the MoPac Service Roads, or in the apartment complexes along Monterey Oaks Blvd. and Staggerbrush Road.

Of the 186 Burglary of Residence I was able to sort the list by address, looking at streets that had multiple burglaries reported, almost all of those are East of MoPac, the few that were West of MoPac were at the apartment complexes listed above or in areas that were close to MoPac off streets that had relatively easy access from the few roads that cross from the East to the West sides of Mopac.

Most of the Burglaries are Burglary of Vehicles

2 BURG OF RES - FAM/DATING ASLT
46 BURGLARY NON RESIDENCE
5 BURGLARY OF COIN-OP MACHINE
186 BURGLARY OF RESIDENCE
536 BURGLARY OF VEH

The locations for the burglaries of vehicles were mostly East of Mopac, or businesses along 43-4600 William Cannon, apartment complexes & businesses along MoPac, apartment complexes along Monterey Oaks Blvd. and Staggerbrush Road, and the streets around West Convict Hill Road and La Concha Pass.

After all this research I now suspect that the biggest increase in burglaries has been from vehicles at the health clubs that opened in 2008 along William Cannon and MoPac and the new shopping centers like Costco.

After a cursory look, it seems as if most of the affected areas are of a more transient nature....mega-apartment complexes, newer outlying areas, as well as DT and the SW side of the city.....sounds about right...