INTRODUCTION Local law enforcement agencies regularly submit crime statistics to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system through their state law enforcement agencies. Part I UCR crimes are the eight “major” offenses and may be divided into violent and property crimes.  The violent crimes include murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. The property crimes include burglary (residential & business), larceny (theft & burglary of a vehicle), auto theft, and arson.  Part II UCR crimes include all other offenses such as vandalism, DWI, disorderly conduct, drug offenses, weapons offenses, etc. In reviewing the below statistics, one must remember that many factors both within and outside the criminal justice system effect the crime rate. Such factors include the performance of law enforcement, quality of prosecution, stringency in sentencing, effectiveness of probationer/parolee monitoring, unemployment rate, other economic factors, and proportion of 16 to 25 year old males in the local population, to name just a few.  Level of confidence of the public in the criminal justice system may also exert unexpected effects.  An increase in the crime rate may reflect an actual increase in the number of crimes committed or simply an increase in the number of crimes reported by victims when public confidence is high. The reverse may be true where decreases occur.  For these reasons, a local law enforcement agency should not accept credit for decreased crime rates nor should it be blamed for increases. 2006 STATISTICS Odessa’s crime rate was down in two of the eight Part I crime categories, stayed the same in two, and was up in four.  The overall Part I crime rate for 2006 decreased by 0.74% as compared with 2005 (4311 vs 4343).
The violent crime rate for 2006 increased by about 6% as compared with 2005 (624 vs 590).
The property crime rate for 2006 decreased by about 2% as compared with 2005 (3687 vs 3753).

The Part II crime rate for 2006 decreased by about 5% as compared with 2005 (5875 vs 6158). COMMENTS Larceny (which for purposes of the UCR includes most theft and vehicle burglaries) normally accounts for the largest proportion of the total Part I crime rate, representing 61%of the Part I crimes reported in 2006.  A decrease in the number of larcenies represented most of the decrease in the property crime rate as compared to the previous year. Unfortunately, the burglary rate increased slightly and the auto theft rate increased significantly.  The increase in auto theft numbers is partially attributable to a spike in the numbers of thefts of ATV’s, motorcycles, and trailers during the month of October.  We have noted that the city of Midland experienced a similar increase in this category. The increase in the violent crime rate is attributable to increases in the number of aggravated assaults and robberies. The majority of aggravated assaults involve a suspect and a victim who know each other.  These situations represent offenses for which there is very little that law enforcement can do in the way of prevention strategy.  This modest increase in violent crime is consistent with that of the national trend. We will continue to focus on strategies to prevent crimes through the educational efforts of our Crime Prevention personnel and the efforts of patrol and detective personnel through our PDSTAT system.  Via the PDSTAT process, we use crime analysis data to identify, on a weekly basis, those individuals, locations, and types of offenses that are causing the most grief for our citizens, and to focus our resources on those people, places, and offenses of interest.  We will continue to have an OPD detective assigned to the FBI’s West Texas Major Area Offender Task Force and will utilize that resource whenever appropriate.  We will continue to seek grant funding to maintain the presence of an OPD sergeant and two investigators on the Midessa Auto Theft Task Force.