1998 is bad news for local criminals
Published on January 13th, 1999
STONEHAM, MA - Living in a suburb of Boston has its advantages and its disadvantages. While many would say that the proximity of Stoneham allows for easy access to entertainment and transcontinental transportation, others would say that inner-city crime has slowly expanded to areas outside of Boston into towns such as this.
According to the latest numbers in Stoneham, however, that trend seems to have been curbed a bit.
Police Chief Eugene Passaro explained to the Independent, last week, that the 1998 crime figures took a downward turn and gave much of the credit to his force and its proactive stance on crime.
"I give a lot of credit to the officers," Passaro explained. "A lot of the reductions are due to the added enforcement.
"There's no one thing, though. There's a multitude of reasons why crime has gone down."
A comparison from the 1997 to the 1998 statistics show sharp drop-offs in areas such as assault and operating under the influence arrests, vandalism and false alarms.
In 1997, the Stoneham Police Department made 85 arrests for assault. In '98, the number dropped to 62.
In 1997, 255 incidents of vandalism were reported to police. In 1998, only 152 incidents were logged by the SPD. Passaro indicated that Inspector George Alger, who has compiled a comprehensive list of area vandals, can be given much of the credit for this decline.
"I think a lot of it had to do with our making a lot of arrests for vandalism," the chief said. "We were able to put a real dent in that, thank goodness."
Passaro said that most of the vandalism perpetrators were out-of-towners who, once enforcement was strengthened, stopped coming to town.
The drop in operating under the influence cases dropped from 22 to 13 in 1998.
Passaro explained that the SPD handed out about 350 more tickets last year than it had in 1997. This increased patrol of Stoneham likely deterred many motorists from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated.
"We have a lot more traffic enforcement," he said. "When you have more traffic enforcement, people think twice about doing things."
On a similar front, he said that accident rates have also been affected by the enforcement.
"Our crime rates are down. Our accident cases are down which is a direct relation to the number of citations which were issued this past year," he explained. "People don't like getting tickets but it brings down the accident rate. Speed is the cause of most accidents."
Keeping with the trend, assault cases went down by nearly 27 percent in 1998, from 85 cases to 62.
Also on a downward spiral are false alarms which dropped from 985 to 823. Passaro said that the charges which the SPD is now imposing for these false alarms has had a direct impact on the number of calls the Police Department has received.
"The false alarm bylaw states that it now costs (businesses and residents) money every time it happens," he said. "People are taking better care of false alarms because it costs them money."
Crime was still evident in Stoneham, however. There were two rapes reported in Stoneham in 1998. None were reported to police in '97. Breaking and entering cases remains to be a problem with 189 cases being reported in 1997 while 190 were reported in '98. The number of robbery cases, nine, equaled the 1997 totals. Forty motor vehicle were stolen in 1997 compared with 38 in '98.
But Passaro says the latest numbers are a positive for the town and for his department as well.
"I give a lot of credit to them (the officers). A lot of the reductions are due to the added enforcement.
"One of the problems is that the more officers you have out there, the more enforcement you take on," Passaro said, explaining that the 36 officers now composing the force is down from the 43 that Stoneham employed in the 1970's. One plus for the town is the influx of younger staff employees who are better able to perform the duties required of modern-day police officers.
The chief also said that the SPD's biggest partner in fighting crime are the people who are protected by it.
"If they (residents) see suspicious people out there, they call us and we're better able to deter crime. We want people to keep calling us and keep talking to us. We have been very successful at working with the public at large," he said.
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