We're hoping the increase in sexual batteries is due to that in the past year, we've had some very high-profile sexual battery cases. It's our belief there's a number of people who don't report rapes for numerous reasons. We hope they're seeing that we're trying to work more with victims to solve them. Robberies climbed from 239 to 271, and aggravated assaults notched up from 597 to 606. Robbery happens when someone steals something directly from a victim, while burglaries usually refer to property theft without the victim being present.
Aggravated assault is an attack that leaves someone with severe injuries.
While it can be difficult to pin down exactly why crime rises or falls, police think the decrease in property crime may be due to their new community policing program, which began August 2000. Police officers get to know the neighborhoods they patrol, and residents give police more information because they know and trust the officers more, said Elizabeth Ham, Gainesville police community resource officer. Often in property crimes, one or two people commit numerous burglaries. Crime in Alachua County followed Gainesville's trends except for a drop in rapes, according to statistics compiled by the Alachua County Sheriff's Office. Rape and other sexual offenses dropped from 168 in 1999 to 149 in 2000.