Northwest Arkansas crime reflects area’s growth

New programs show promise for prolonging recent declines

Cheri Taylor (right) and Vicki Loyd with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit visit with Abraham Hodge, 2, on Friday, July 15, 2022, outside his family’s home in Fort Smith. While many cities in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley saw violent crime surge in 2020 and continue in 2021, violent crime dropped significantly in Fort Smith during that time in large part because of efforts related to crisis intervention and de-escalation, according to the department. Visit nwaonline.com/220717Daily/ for today's photo gallery.
(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Cheri Taylor (right) and Vicki Loyd with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit visit with Abraham Hodge, 2, on Friday, July 15, 2022, outside his family’s home in Fort Smith. While many cities in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley saw violent crime surge in 2020 and continue in 2021, violent crime dropped significantly in Fort Smith during that time in large part because of efforts related to crisis intervention and de-escalation, according to the department. Visit nwaonline.com/220717Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)


The violent crime rate in Northwest Arkansas generally grew with its population from 2012 to 2020.

The rate plummeted last year, however, a change owed largely to Fort Smith's drop in violent crime.

Law enforcement officials are looking at different approaches to keep people safe as the region's population rises.

An analysis of total violent crime numbers in the region confirms what many public safety administrators have been saying for a few years: Violent crime has increased over the past decade, and 2020 was the worst year in a while.

Most police departments classify violent crime as homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Data compiled by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from 2012 to 2021 also included sexual assault for the sake of uniformity because some departments include sexual assault with the numbers for rape.

Figures came from the police departments in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Fort Smith and the University of Arkansas' Fayetteville campus.

Violent crime rate is calculated by dividing the total number of violent crimes per 100,000 in population.

TRENDS

The national violent crime rate has had peaks and valleys over the last 10 years, while the rate in Northwest Arkansas has trended generally upward. The violent crime rate in the United States dropped sharply from 2012 to 2014, rose from 2014 to 2016, dipped slightly from 2016 to 2019 and hit the highest rate in 10 years in 2020, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's crime data explorer.

The rate of violent crime in the United States in 2020 was 398.5 per 100,000 residents, according to the FBI's figures. Only two cities in Northwest Arkansas -- Rogers and Bentonville -- consistently stayed below a rate of 400 since 2012, according to information compiled from regional police departments.

In Northwest Arkansas, violent crime dropped from 2012 to 2013 and rose steadily from 2013 to 2017. The rate went slightly lower in 2018 and 2019 before hitting its peak in a 10-year period in 2020. By last year, violent crime had fallen to its lowest level since 2013.

The drop largely was because of Fort Smith's numbers.

The region's population increased throughout the 10-year period. The five largest cities in Northwest Arkansas combined for 332,652 residents in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. By 2021, the population had grown 20% to 400,261.

Violent crime rates in Northwest Arkansas aren't necessarily comparable to national statistics because the FBI generally analyzes data in cities with more than 100,000 residents, said Grant Drawve, associate sociology and criminology professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The population of the region may exceed 100,000, but there's significant difference among the cities, and smaller cities can have crime rates that fluctuate widely, he said.

An increasing violent crime rate is not an inevitable side effect of a surging population, Drawve said. Total numbers will go up, but the rate relative to the population can differ, he said.

Police nationally have taken a more evidence-based approach to what they do, Drawve said. Bringing in civilian employees to do deep data dives or take on social work will help departments become more effective at helping to prevent violent crime, he said.

A significant percentage of calls that police respond to are unrelated to crime, Drawve said, and the most effective departments adjust personnel and policies accordingly.

Violent crime jumped across the country in 2020 as the pandemic set in and closures at public places prompted people to stay in more, leading to more instances of domestic violence.

It makes sense the violent crime rate in Northwest Arkansas would differ from the national rate because the region is a growth area and a destination, with transient populations such as students and tourists affecting the overall behavior of the community, Drawve said.

"We hear about what police do a lot of the time in terms of trying a new tactic or focusing on a certain area, but we need to know if it's working or not," Drawve said. "I think that's where we're coming in now with evidence-based policing."

FRUITS OF LABOR

As the violent crime rate in Fort Smith has gone, so has the region. For the past 10 years, when the city's rate went down, so did the region's, and when the city's rate went up, the region followed suit.

The violent crime rate from 2020 to 2021 went up slightly in Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers. Bentonville's dropped and the city by far has had the lowest crime rate overall in the region for the past decade.

Fort Smith experienced the highest crime rate of any major city in Northwest Arkansas in 2020 and followed it up with the lowest rate it had in the 10-year period by a significant margin in 2021.

The department is seeing the fruits of its efforts to establish a crisis intervention unit and change the way it trains its officers, spokesman Aric Mitchell said. According to the department's figures, there were 704 violent crimes in Fort Smith in 2020. In 2021, the department recorded 323 -- a 54% drop.

The department started putting together a crisis intervention unit in January 2020, before the onset of the pandemic. The unit, consisting of two officers and a peer recovery support specialist, responds to people experiencing mental health or substance use crises and connects them with resources or helps them get into diversionary programs to avoid jail.

Officers in recent years also have taken on a new method of training, Mitchell said. The ICAT program, which stands for integrating communications, assessment and tactics, from the Police Executive Research Forum emphasizes deescalation and methods other than the use of deadly force. The forum is a national research organization that advises police departments.

The combination of crisis intervention, deescalation and diversion resulted in a significant reduction in violent crime because professionals in the department and partner organizations intervened in people's lives before situations could get to the point of violence, Mitchell said. Implementation of those policies just happened to follow a pandemic year, he said.

"I would be pleasantly surprised, but I wouldn't expect a 54% drop every year," Mitchell said.

Violent crime often happens because people reach the point of desperation, said Cheri Taylor, an officer with the city's crisis intervention unit. Members of the unit spend their time sifting through police incident reports and reaching out to people who appear to be in difficult situations. Residents get connected with nonprofits and rehabilitation programs throughout the region, and members of the unit stay connected with them to ensure long-term success, she said.

"People get desperate for a lot of things, and they may do things in that desperation they might not otherwise do," Taylor said.

KEEPING UP

Springdale and Fayetteville also implemented crisis intervention programs with social workers. Springdale has a summer social work intern with the University of Arkansas School of Social Work and will get another when school starts in August.

Fayetteville has had a master's level paid internship program, also through the University of Arkansas School of Social Work, since January 2021. Right now, the department has one full-time social worker, a summer intern and an officer to form a crisis intervention team, with plans to hire a second social worker and a second intern in August, said Lt. Tim Shepard, the program's supervisor.

There were 628 instances of violent crime in 2020 in Fayetteville and 633 last year based on figures from the city's Police Department as well as University of Arkansas police. Fayetteville started its crisis intervention efforts later than Fort Smith, but Police Chief Mike Reynolds said he's hopeful for a similar result. So far there's been a 20% reduction in violent crime this year compared to last year, he said.

Fayetteville officers also began training in the ICAT program this year, Reynolds said. The City Council added six officer positions to the budget last year, and the department is waiting to hear word on a federal grant that would lead to the creation of a violent crimes task force with five additional officers, he said.

Reynolds said his concern has been hiring enough officers to deal with a rising crime rate associated with an increasing population. The city's population has grown nearly 24%, from 76,892 residents in 2012 to an estimated 95,230 last year, according to the Census Bureau. In that time span, the violent crime rate increased from about 580 instances of violent crime per 100,000 people in 2012 to nearly 665 per 100,000 people -- a rise of nearly 15%.

Even if the crime rate in the city stays level, the number of violent crimes likely will increase with the population just because there are more people, which is why Reynolds said he needs more officers. Having more personnel specialized in certain tasks, such as investigating violent crime or responding to mental health crises, will free up time for other officers to work patrol and get to know their communities more, he said.

"That's something as a chief you have to pay attention to. Your crime rate can go down based upon your population, but the number of calls for service and the number of violent crimes that you're responding to are going up," Reynolds said. "If you're not adding more officers, and you're not specializing in those areas of crime you need to combat, it's increasing the workload for your officers."

  photo  Cheri Taylor (right) and Vicki Loyd (not pictured) with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit visit with Parcita Freeman (from left), Dion Sisk, 9, and Halle Freeman, 10, on Friday, July 15, 2022, outside Freeman’s home in Fort Smith. While many cities in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley saw violent crime surge in 2020 and continue in 2021, violent crime dropped significantly in Fort Smith during that time in large part because of efforts related to crisis intervention and de-escalation, according to the department. Visit nwaonline.com/220717Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
 
 
  photo  Vicki Loyd and Cheri Taylor (not pictured) with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit work on Friday, July 15, 2022, in their office at FSPD in Fort Smith. While many cities in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley saw violent crime surge in 2020 and continue in 2021, violent crime dropped significantly in Fort Smith during that time in large part because of efforts related to crisis intervention and de-escalation, according to the department. Visit nwaonline.com/220717Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
 
 
  photo  Cheri Taylor (left) and Vicki Loyd with the Fort Smith Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit work on Friday, July 15, 2022, in their office at FSPD in Fort Smith. While many cities in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley saw violent crime surge in 2020 and continue in 2021, violent crime dropped significantly in Fort Smith during that time in large part because of efforts related to crisis intervention and de-escalation, according to the department. Visit nwaonline.com/220717Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
 
 
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