Dropping crime rates in the village
Crime rates in Rockville Centre have fallen for the second year in a row, reaching a record low in 2014. This decrease includes all reported crime as well as major incidents, which include robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, stolen cars, sex offenses and homicides.
“Once again we had a banner year for a low crime rate in the village,” Police Commissioner Charles Gennario said at a Board of Trustees briefing session on Jan. 29. “I never thought we’d pass last year’s numbers, however we have. These are the lowest numbers we’ve had since we’ve ever started doing crime reports. It was a great year and I want to thank the board for their support.”
In 2013 there were two homicides — a drunk driving death and the murder of Lauren Daverin-Gresham. In 2014 there were none. Residential burglaries in 2014 were a fourth of what they were in 2012.
Lieutenant Chris Romance said that the decreased crime rate was attributable to increased enforcement and public awareness campaigns.
Theft from cars, the most common crime, went down to a quarter of what it was in 2012. “We do see fluctuation in these numbers,” said Romance. “We sometimes see a spike in these numbers when it’s warmer because people roll down their windows.” Romance said that theft from cars is “one of those crimes of opportunity” because criminals search for cars that have unlocked doors or open windows.
There were no car accident deaths within the village in 2014. Driving While Intoxicated arrests had increased in 2013 but have held steady in 2014. Romance credited these safer roads to community education and additional enforcement, especially around holidays and weekends.
This enforcement also involves tackling underage drinking.
“We are conducting additional enforcement details around the business district around licensed premises that sell alcohol,” said Romance. “We will send in an underage person to see if they sell alcohol to an underage person.”
The test is on businesses to ask to see ID and to reject the IDs of underage people. Romance said there are several of those types of operations throughout the year.
So what can people, especially the public, do in the future to make sure crime keeps going down?
“We’d like to see more involvement from the community in private and public partnership in the Neighborhood Watch and Auxiliary Police,” said Romance.
