Oct
20
2017
October 20, 2017
Some Irvine residents say it feels like crime in their city -- one of the safest in America -- is rising. But that's not what the data show, says John Hipp, professor of criminology law and society.
"I’ve heard people say it’s getting worse and there’s just no evidence of that," Hipp told the Orange County Register. "I go to national conferences, my colleagues sort of joke, ‘How do you study crime in Irvine? There’s no crime there.'"
Both violent crime and property crime in Irvine have fallen in recent decades, dropping 78 and 73 percent, respectively, since 1979. That mirrors nationwide trends, which show crime dropping by half 1993 and 2015.