Atlantic City Crime

Atlantic and Cape May counties saw an increase in violent crime in 2010
By LYNDA COHEN Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com

Atlantic and Cape May counties saw an increase in violent crime last year, despite statewide numbers remaining about the same, according to the Uniform Crime Report released this week.

Meanwhile, Cumberland County — which had two more homicides in 2010 than in 2009 — saw an 11 percent decrease in violent crime. Ocean was down 1 percent.

Click here to view the full report.

Atlantic City led the county in overall crime incidents with 4,790 crimes in 2010 compared with 4,109 the year before, a 17 percent increase. The major jump was in nonviolent crime. There was a 7 percent increase in violent crime as well in the city, but that was all due to robberies, the report shows. Rape and aggravated assault numbers both declined.

Overall, total crime was up about 1 percent throughout the year, a trend that Attorney General Paula Dow said needs to be addressed.

“We must be aggressive and smart in fighting crime, especially during this economic crisis facing our state and nation,” she said.

Several local departments, including in Atlantic City, have moved toward becoming more proactive with technology and working to track trends. The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office has led the way in the county so that files can be shared electronically. The county also has worked to catalog private surveillance cameras in an attempt to get visual evidence quickly when crimes are committed.

Atlantic, Cape and Ocean counties each saw a nearly 8 percent increase in overall crime, with a significant number being burglaries and larceny. Cumberland had a 2 percent drop, including 15 rapes compared with 30 the year before.

Rape and murder decreased in Atlantic County, with two fewer homicides and six fewer rapes. But the county was still fifth in the number of homicides throughout the state, with Camden County topping the list at 46. This year, Atlantic County already has had 19 homicides, with 12 of those happening in Atlantic City, including several daylight shootings. The city also had 12 homicides in each of the previous years, although the report lists 11 each for 2009 and 2010.

“There was a significant drop in personnel available to do proactive police work during that time,” Atlantic City Deputy Chief Ernest Jubilee said. Last year, 60 officers were laid off. The report also shows the total employees in the department dropped from 529 to 346.

“Not that that’s an excuse, but we just had less people available,” Jubilee said. “We were not able to prevent as many crimes. To do the investigative work with less investigators hampered our work as well. I think we’ve recovered from that and I look forward to seeing an improvement in the numbers moving forward.”

The department has since rehired 57 of those officers.

This week, Dow talked about a partnership in Atlantic City that she believes will help meet the governor’s goal of “clean and safe.” Jubilee also spoke of the partnership Friday.

“There is a better coordination of the law enforcement effort in Atlantic City,” he said, including the partnership with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, State Police and other agencies.

“We set up regular coordination meetings so that the investigators all know who’s working on what and we’re not stepping on each other’s toes,” Jubilee said. “A year from now when we look back on these numbers, we should see an improvement.”

The county overall is doing better on solving the homicides this year. A Press of Atlantic City analysis showed that in 2010, the county had the worst solve rate for deadly crimes of any county in the state with just 29 percent. This year, there have been arrests in 58 percent of those cases, including the abduction of teenager Nadirah Ruffin from an Atlantic City apartment and the carjacking from a casino garage in which a man was killed and his girlfriend wounded.