By Adam Pagnucco.
In Part One, we explored the time pattern of violent crime and found that it was most prevalent in the afternoon and early night and was actually declining slightly after midnight. Is that true of property crime? Let’s find out.
The chart below shows property crime by hour of day from 2017 through 2022.
As with violent crime, the top hour for property crime is midnight. But overall, the peak hours range from noon to 6 PM. For violent crime, the peak hours were 3 PM to 9 PM.
The chart below shows the distribution of property crime by time of day.
For violent crime, roughly a third was in the afternoon and another third was in the early night. For property crime, the afternoon clearly leads and late night trails. Roughly two thirds of property crime occurs between noon and midnight.
Finally, the chart below shows the trend in property crime by time of day.
This is quite different from violent crime, which has been increasing in the morning and afternoon and has fallen slightly in late night. Property crime is up 33% in late night. It is up by 4% in the morning and 1% in the afternoon while it has fallen by 14% in early night.
The spike in late night property crime is significant and may be more remediable through a wee hour strategy than violent crime. But there is another wrinkle. The county’s proposed late night crime plan is targeted at “priority areas” with an immediate focus on Downtown Silver Spring. Does that area have different trends than the county overall? We shall find out in Part Three.