(The Center Square) — The Bossier City Police Department and Bossier Parish Sheriff’s office show similar decade trends according to the FBI: Violent crime is up and property crime is down.
The differences from 2014 to now are slight however, and because both departments have similar trends numbers for the Bossier City Police Department will be utilized since it has a larger sample size.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting database has tracked offense numbers based on what’s reported by law enforcement agencies across the country.
In November 2014, violent crime in Bossier City hit its lowest offense number in a month at 128. After that the average continued to be between 150 and 225 until the violent crimes reported dipped under 150 for the second and last time in February 2017.
From that point, reports started to spike. The average month stayed constant, but as the peaks steadily increased, they became a lot more common than dips until July of 2020 when the offense count finally went above 250. It happened several times again hitting its highest mark in July 2020 at 300.
The average has lowered back down below 250 violent cases a month since, but rarely lower than 200.
Property crime, on a month to month basis, has lower since the beginning of the last decade, but in even smaller increments than violent crime.
From 2014 to 2019 there’s a lot more fluctuation in monthly reports. The lows are less than recent years going under 200 cases twice, but the highs are more as well with much more incidences of over 300 per month.
The most inconsistent year was 2019 and had both the highest and lowest monthly counts at 161 and 352 respectfully. This year was also when property crime incidents became more consistent.
Across Louisiana, reported property crimes have generally decreased since 2014, but so has the percent of population covered, meaning agencies and or areas that report to this database. Violent crime has maintained about the same monthly averages with slightly lower peaks.
The accuracy of the FBI’s crime reporting has come under question. The Coalition for Law, Order and Safety says actual crime rates are likely higher than the FBI data show, according to an April 2024 report. The coalition says the FBI’s system for collecting the statistics leads to lower crime reporting levels.
A violent offense includes murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault and intimidation.
Property crimes are burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.
