Violent Crime Rate
Overall Decrease in Rate Continues
Why is it important?
Violent crime undermines a community's quality by creating a climate of fear and mistrust. These fears, if persistent, can affect growth in social capital by triggering stress-related illnesses and can affect growth in financial capital through decreased work productivity.9
How are we doing?
Crime rates have been declining both nationwide and in California's urban areas. Violent crime has also fallen across the Sierra Nevada, albeit in differing patterns. In the North and South Central Sierra, violent crime declined steadily between 1995 and 2001, but rose again in 2002. In the North Central Sierra, violent crime decreased throughout the 1993-2002 study period. The East Sierra experienced a spike in violent crime through 1997—exceeding the state's crime rate that year—and fell to levels consistent with the rest of the Sierra by 1999. Except for the East Sierra in 1997, violent crime rates across the Sierra Nevada were well below those in the state, although the declines in Sierra violent crime have not been as great.
9 CIGNA Behavioral Health. http://apps.cignabehavioral.com/web/basicsite/bulletinBoard/copingWithFearOfViolentCrime.jsp
