The San Jose Police Department reported that residential burglaries dropped by 40% in the last four years. However, other crimes continue to rise, and the chief said he knows why.
While home burglaries dropped, violent crime has been increasing citywide. Robberies and assaults have risen steadily over the last six years and chief Eddie Garcia said all those numbers should realistically be worse, given the size of his force.
“The fact that aggravated assaults haven’t gone up as much as it probably could, is because of the proactive work those officers do,” he said.
Garcia said San Jose remains the biggest U.S. city with the fewest number of officers on the streets.
The department is slowing rebuilding and the more officers join the force, the chief said, the faster the violent crimes will drop.
“We have some areas where we need to improve, but hopefully that will improve when we grow our department,” Garcia’s said.
