Crime on the rise in Riverside County

Both violent and property crimes are going up in many of the cities around our valley.

Today, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department released FBI statistics for January to June 2015. The numbers reflect crime in cities and unincorporated areas policed by the department.

Here are those statistics compared to the same time period last year:

2014 2015 Change Violent 1372 1459 +6.3% Property 16,758 17,132 +2.2% All Part I Crime 18,130 18,591 +2.5%

According to Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, here are some of the numbers for cities policed by their own departments:

Desert Hot Springs Robbery +68% Vehicle Theft +85% Cathedral City Violent Crime +27% Property Crime +14% Palm Springs Violent Crime -16% Property Crime +15% Indio Aggravated Assault +22% Violent Crime +18%

Hestrin says the increase in crime is likely due to inadequate penalties following the Realignment Act in 2011 (also called AB109) and last November’s passage of Proposition 47.

“They’re committing crimes, they’re committing thefts, they’re using drugs and we can’t get in their way anymore, we can’t reach them anymore,” Hestrin told CBS Local 2. “The message we’re sending out to people involved in a criminal lifestyle is there’s not going to be very serious consequences for your criminality so we’re emboldening them to commit more and more crime.”

Hestrin says he’s working to fix the most dangerous provisions of Prop 47 and urges people to contact their local elected representatives to support those initiatives.