Interpreting FBI report cautiously

Once again, the FBI has released crime statistics that demand a fair amount of scrutiny and a fair amount of caution.

The scrutiny comes from a few eye-catching changes between 2004 and 2005 in Costa Mesa. Assaults increased 21% to 154 in 2005 from 127 in 2004, according to numbers the FBI released this week. Violent crime overall jumped more than 7%, to 306 from 284. Burglary and vehicle thefts each rose more than 20% ? to 596 from 495 and to 555 from 448, respectively.

At the same time, there were a few dramatic decreases. Rape fell almost 27%, to 30 from 41. The number of arsons dropped 20%, though just to 12 from 15.

The caution comes, for example, after looking at those arson numbers. A 20% drop certainly sounds like a big deal. But a total decrease of just three incidents? That’s not much to celebrate.

In Costa Mesa, the big increases and decreases are not so startling when the numbers are examined. None of the big percentage changes amount to a big change in pure number of crimes. The two crimes that are most frequent, property crime and theft, changed little. But these were the only ones to differ by hundreds of crimes.

And so these numbers should not be taken as more meaningful or dreadful than they need to be. Do they contain suggestions of where the city has problems that ought to be handled? Yes. And, Police Chief John Hensley said, the Police Department quickly addressed those crimes that were on the rise, leading to a 9.6% drop so far this year. That is the smart use of these trends ? reacting to them to make the city safer.

What these numbers are not is an alarm bell that Costa Mesa suddenly is a dangerous place to live, work and play. It is far from that, even if, like any city, it isn’t perfect.