(Host) There’s confirmation that Vermont remains a pretty safe place, even though there was a spike last year in burglaries.
The Vermont Criminal Information Center released its annual report on crime trends, which it prepares for the FBI.
Max Schlueter is director.
(Schlueter) "Certainly when we look at the overall number of crimes, that was nearly steady from 2007 when compared to 2008. There were these shifts in particular types of crime. The good news is that the violent crime is down, the drug-related crime seems to be down. What we did see was a bit of an upturn in terms of property crime, and specifically increases in burglary and theft."
(Host) The number of burglaries rose eleven percent last year and thefts were up ten percent.
Schlueter says property crimes generally are committed by young people. But last year, the age of offenders was up slightly, and that led him to a conclusion about the cause.
(Schlueter) "Typically, we don’t see the economy as affecting property crime in a significant way, but I have to think that because all of the other statistical indicators seem to be pretty consistent between 2007, 2008, that probably the economy had something to do with this increase."
(Host) Schleuter says another reason for that conclusion is that the burglaries and thefts appeared to be "crimes of opportunity."
That means there were a lot of instances where the burglar walked through an open door or opened an unlocked car to steal something.