RealEstateEconomyWatch.com

Crime rates fell in nearly every one of the nation’s leading foreclosure markets last year, exceeding a decline in the national crime rate in many cases, despite the widespread belief that foreclosures spawn crime.

According to statistics reported to the FBI by law enforcement agencies for the first six months of 2009, violent crimes and crimes against property fell dramatically in spite of the deep and prolonged recession.  Crime rates in foreclosure hotbeds mirrored and some cases exceeded the national trend.

The FBI’s latest nationwide figures show that violent crime for the United States as a whole declined by 4.4 percent in the first half of 2009, compared with the first half of 2008, led by a 10 percent drop in murders.  Crimes against property, including burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, declined 6.1 percent nationally.

In Las Vegas, which led the nation in foreclosures for most of the year, violent crimes fell 1.5 percent by crimes against property fell 7.8 percent, a decrease greater than the national decline of 6.1 percent.  Stockton, which ranks third nationally for foreclosures according to RealtyTrac, saw violent crime fall 11 percent and crimes against property, 19 percent.

In other top California foreclosure markets, Sacramento’s violent rate fell 15 percent and property crime rate, 7.5 percent.  Violent crimes in Riverside dropped 20 percent and property crime fell 13 percent.  In Bakersfield, violent crime fell 5.5 percent and 3.3 percent in Vallejo.

Florida’s top foreclosure markets, Cape Coral and Orlando, experienced similar declines.  In Cape Coral/Ft. Myers, violent crime fell 8 percent and crimes against property declined 12 percent.  In Orlando, which ranks eighth in foreclosures, violent crime dropped 30 percent and property crime was off 8.2 percent.

Among foreclosure hotbeds, only Detroit, a long time center for foreclosures, witnesses an increase in violent crime, of less than one percent.  Property crime fell 13 percent.  Only Bakersfield and Vallejo witnessed an increase in crimes against property.

According to the Associated Press, much of the credit for the overall decline in crime is due to proactive law enforcement strategies in which police quickly boost their presence in selected urban areas to deter would-be bad guys, using real-time analysis of street intelligence.

New state laws, local ordinances and stepped up policing have reduced the threat to safety posed by abandoned foreclosures in many communities.  HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program is funding community programs to revitalize communities plagued by large numbers of foreclosures through the purchase and redevelopment of foreclosed and abandoned homes and residential properties.

The latest data may cause experts to rethink the link between crime and Federal stimulus funds funded local initiatives in communities with large numbers of foreclosures, including stepped up policing and community watch groups.  .

A 2005 study conducted to measure the effect of foreclosures of single-family homes on levels of violent and property crime at the neighborhood level found that when a neighborhood has 2.8 foreclosures for every 100 owner-occupied properties in a year, violent crime in the immediate area goes up 6.7 percent.  Increased in FBI crime rates in 2005 and 2006 were attributed in part to foreclosures.  Yet in 2009, foreclosure rates far exceeded those of 2005 and 2006, and crime rates fell dramatically.