Budget cuts have meant a two-thirds cut in Sacramento County, Ca., sheriff’s resources dedicated to property crime, and the Sacramento Police Department has reduced its resources by one-third, reports the Sacramento Bee. The police and sheriff’s departments respond to nearly all residential burglaries but victims of most other property crimes like the theft of an iPad out of a car or a stolen bike are likely to be referred online to file reports.
Last year, sheriff’s investigators had a workload of 757 property cases, just 5 percent of the nearly 16,000 reports that came in. To use detectives’ time better and put the greatest number of thieves in jail , they focus on cases that show hope for closure. In Sacramento, a person is nearly six times more likely to be the victim of a property crime than a violent crime. Property crime in the region rose in 2012 for the first time in years, though totals remained well below the heights they reached in the last decade. Property crimes account for more than three-fourths of local crimes reported. Yet less than 15 percent of the Sheriff’s Department’s investigative division is assigned to property crimes.