A Kansas Highway Patrol officer keeps the peace Aug. 16, 2023, outside the Marion County Courthouse. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
LAWRENCE — An annual report on crime in Kansas shows property crime rising and a decline in violent crime, providing benchmarks that may guide law enforcement and community leaders.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Index Report, which summarizes crime data submitted by law enforcement agencies from across the state, shows property crime increased by 2.6% and violent crime decreased by 3.7% from 2022 to 2023.
The number of reported property crimes increased to 66,782 cases.
The report said the overall crime index was “heavily impacted” by the uptick in property crimes, increasing from 26.7 offenses per 1,000 people in 2022 to 27 offenses per 1,000 people in 2023. The property crime rate was 10% below the 10-year average.
“Property offenses have steadily declined in recent years, making 2023 the first year since 2017 that the state experienced an uptick in property crime reports,” the report said. “Property crime offenses are assumed to be underreported to law enforcement.”
The crime that saw the largest individual increase was motor vehicle theft, which was up 4.8%
Law enforcement agencies recorded 13,294 violent crimes throughout the state. The violent crime rate was nearly 10% above the 10-year average.
The number of reported rape cases decreased by 12.6%, or 161 cases, from 2022 to 2023.
Although crime stats compiled by the KBI can be helpful for identifying trends, the KBI said in a news release “it is often not possible to draw further interpretations or conclusions from the data. It is dependent on victims reporting crimes.”
“We typically see more property crimes than violent crimes based on raw numbers,” said Sgt. Drew Fennelly, public information officer for the Lawrence Police Department. “Crime touches each community very differently. The reasons for trends could be very different in Wichita, Kansas City, or Dodge City.”
Melissa Underwood, spokeswoman for the KBI, didn’t respond to inquiries for this story.
Adrianne Nuñez, spokeswoman for the Willow Domestic Violence Center of Lawrence, said the data is important for looking at crime on a broader scale. Agencies like the Willow use a variety of data from across the state to spread awareness or use in training, she said.
“We believe tracking crime data is important. It gives us a snapshot of what is happening in our communities,” Nuñez said. “We hope these statistics continue to drop to the point that our job is unnecessary. More specifically, we hope these statistics continue to evolve to reflect the most accurate information in our communities while allowing survivors to be safe.”
The report does not track specific categories of murder or aggravated assault in the data, which can make it difficult to draw conclusions about statewide violence within smaller communities. While the 3.7% decrease in violent crime overall is a step forward for Kansas, organizations like Moms Demand Action still worry about gun violence and incidents that are not counted in the annual report.
“I do think it’s beneficial to track the data because data gives us things that we can improve on,” said Shannon Little, a Moms Demand Action co-leader and volunteer. “Comparing different sets of data will give you different answers. Even though our violent crime rate has gone down almost 4%, Kansas still has some of the weakest gun safety laws in the country.”
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