by Jasmine Stole / jstole@guampdn.com
Guam Police Department’s chief of police said violent crime declined from 2015 to 2016. Experts with a New York-based criminal justice university say that’s right — but they also predict more violent crime for 2017.
“For violent crimes, there seems to be an upward trend across time and a downward trend for property crimes,” said Sheyla Delgado, deputy director for analytics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center.
Analysts from John Jay looked at Guam crime data from 2010 through 2016. Delgado said local crime data shows positive to negative fluctuations year to year.
“This may be the actual crime pattern, but we doubt it,” Delgado said in an email. “Most crime data is flaky and it is, at most, a proxy for police activity.”
Delgado said the fluctuations could also reflect issues in how the data is compiled. Even with violent crimes trending upward, Delgado said Guam’s violent and property crime rates are “way below” crime rates of other U.S. cities with similar populations.
The latest Guam crime report showed 341 violent crimes in 2016, down from 692 in 2015.