Forcible Rape Jumps 26.76% in San Diego (Updated)

The FBI released voluntarily reported crime statistics for cities and the nation. The Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2012 shows a slight national uptick in violent crime of 1.9% from 2011. In San Diego, rape is up by 26.76% and overall violent crime has increased by 7.87%.

San Diego has not reported a significant number of additional murders, 40 during the first half of 2012 compared with 39 during the previous year. While some Police point out that area murders in 2012 have included several gang related killings, the overall rate of murder in the county is nearly flat.

Earlier this year we reported on a 26% increase in rapes per the San Diego Association of Governments, but the two statistics are fundamentally different. The Union Tribute points to the rape definition from earlier this year:

The number of rapes increased by 26 percent, with 376 reported from January to June. At least part of the increase can be attributed to a wider definition of rape that went into effect in January. The new definition includes any gender of victim or perpetrator, as well as instances in which the victim is incapable of giving consent because of temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity.

The FBI statistics use "Forcible Rape," a term you may recall from the 2012 election. The media did not report the fact that this is an important distinction in crime reporting and legislation.

Forcible rapes in the San Diego area increased from 213 during the first half of 2011 to 270 during the same period in 2012. This is a similar percentage increase, but the numbers differ drastically.

A year over year trend in FBI crime statistics shows that this is the first uptick in violent crime in several years. There are a couple explanations at work.

Some pundits are blaming the poor economy, but some of the San Diego areas hardest hit by the economy are not showing a correlation. The same problem arises when left wing pundits point to gun possession. El Cajon, California shows a 24.8% decrease in violent crime, a 20% decrease in rape and a 24.8% decrease in assaults. El Cajon is an area associated with gun ownership in San Diego.

Carlsbad, Escondido and Temecula have seen sharp increases in reported forcible rapes. These areas are all similar in population size compared to El Cajon, but are more secluded. "Open Carry" was outlawed in California beginning in January 2012. This may point out that scarcely populated areas without the protection of firearms are targeted by criminals.

Another explanation may be prison realignment (AB109). 10 News reports:

San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne said gangs are growing as a result of the state's prison realignment with California wardens shifting tens of thousands of inmates to county jail cells or providing early release.

"We're seeing about a thousand additional people out of prison and they don't have quite the level of oversight they would normally have and it's pretty clear that it's having some effect on the gangs and they're being more aggressive than before," Lansdowne said.

Gang violence is up 34 percent, he said.

Anecdotal evidence supports the Police Chief, but this is a difficult case to make. City by city across California the results of prison realignment are mixed per the Sacremento Bee.

"The state is not collecting data on this," Krisberg said. "I think it is scandalous."

My theory is that prison realignment, illegal immigration, police budgetary restrictions and the banning of Open Carry laws have produced a net effect. Where people are not armed and police are understaffed, crime is exploding. Elsewhere, criminals now understand that Californians are defenseless and our criminal system is not capable of punishing them for crimes when caught.

While this report is focused on the latest FBI report, 2012 full year statistics on murder is being locally reported:

The murder rate in San Diego was up almost 20 percent in 2012 from the year before, and in San Diego County, the numbers increased by almost 23 percent.

The FBI murder statistics for San Diego during January to June 2012 show an increase of only 8% (25 to 27), which leads to the conclusion that these problems must be growing...and we are legally prohibited from protecting ourselves.

Update:

Police chiefs from around San Diego confirmed my suspicion that the increase in crime is due to the "Open Carry" ban. UT San Diego's Pauline Repard issued a report that three police chiefs from San Diego jumped to support President Obama's 23 executive orders on "gun violence." Can you guess which three?

“I was pleasantly surprised when I heard him take a comprehensive approach,” said Carlsbad Police Chief Gary Morrison. “I liked the way he talked about the medical community and the impact of video games on kids, and money to law enforcement and schools to craft emergency response plans.”

“You could not find a bigger supporter of the president than myself today,” said San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne. “It makes my officers safer and it’s going to make the community safer.”

Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano said most people in law enforcement welcome the additional measures the president is proposing.

Maybe this is a biased view and the hardest hit police chiefs are simply grasping for solutions to problems. However this looks like anti-gun police chiefs, and Sheriff Gore if you read the full story, reduce the ability of law abiding citizens to defend themselves and their property. For these San Diego police chiefs overall violent crime is up 8.32% and forcible rape is up 37.16%. The FBI report shows a 6.29% increase in violent crime and a 3.08% uptick in forcible rape for the other San Diego police chiefs.

In Carlsbad forcible rape skyrocketed 275% and violent crime overall is up 73.42%. On the bright side, there were no murders in the first half of 2012 and auto theft was slightly down. Robbery, aggravated
assault, property crime, burglary and larceny-theft increased.

Chula Vista shows a 16% decrease in reported violent crime due to less aggravated assaults. The FBI report also show a 14.3% increase in forcible rape and increased burglaries, auto theft and property crimes.

Hopefully unrelated, yet interestingly, Chula Vista's police chief David Bejarano had reported ties to Mexican drug gangs and has been accused of writing bad checks.

The city of San Diego shows a 9.55% increase in violent crime and the numbers look to be getting worse as described above.

A full spreadsheet of statistics with my calculations is available here. The stats have been added as an enclosure to this post.

Sources:
CBS News 8
FBI
UT San Diego
10 News
Sacremento Bee

Obama Lying to Women About Rape

Enough. The entire "legitimate"/"forcible" rape discussion is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. That the media continues the lie is a disgustingly bias mutilation of the American system. The fact that this is now spun into a statement on women's health care is simply intolerable.

Allow me to set the record straight, then you can decide to continue reading or not.

Republicans are not against women's health, they are opposed to the government forcing Catholics and others into paying for abortions. The entire #WarOnWomen is a fantasy created to scare women into voting for Barack Obama.

Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin mistakenly used the term "legitimate" in place of "forcible" when discussing rape. Everyone in the news business understands the difference between statutory rape and "forcible rape." The difference is the lack of consent.

The term "forcible rape" is a legal definition used to distinguish between statutory rape and non-consensual rape. The term is used by legislators and law enforcement in the United States and in United Nations statistics.

Some types of rape are excluded from official reports altogether (the FBI's definition, for example, used to exclude all rapes except forcible rapes of females)

Statutory rapes are legally different and carry different criminal penalties than forcible rapes.

These definitions have important consequences to legislation. For example, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R)  recently removed the term "forcible" from legislation that may have harmed young victims of statutory rape, by forcing them to contact their rapist for child support before being able to qualify for state childcare assistance.

Lets look at the full context of the Todd Akin statement, in the event there is any doubt that his intention was to distinguish between statutory and forcible rape. His full comments during the Jaco Report interview is available here. The abortion and rape comments occurring in part two around the 1:56 mark:



After watching the entire context, it is clear that Rep. Akin

• Rep. Akin was very emotional at the moment he was speaking.
• Does not believe that it is impossible to get pregnant from a rape.
• He meant to distinguish between statutory rape and forcible rape. A point which he further explains here.

In addition to the Missouri Senatorial Candidate's recent comments, the media has attempted to tie Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan to the misstatement. The connection is attempted through the expressed legislative language "Forcible rape" within a recent proposed bill. A bill that neither Rep. Paul Ryan nor Rep. Todd Akin wrote, but both had supported as cosponsors in an effort to reduce public funding of abortion. The bill was titled: the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."

In the original language, it also allowed exceptions in cases of "forcible rape." The term provoked an outcry from critics, who said that rape is by definition committed by force and that lawmakers were seeking to exclude from coverage certain kinds of rape by adding the modifier - for example, cases in which the victim was underage or unconscious.

The bill now would allow exceptions in all cases of rape.

A spokesman for Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), a chief sponsor of the bill, said Thursday that lawmakers decided to change the term because it was being "misconstrued."

(Update) Politifact has joined us in this fact finding mission:

For perspective, we checked the cosponsors of both the 2010 and 2011 introductions of the bill using THOMAS, the congressional database.

The version introduced July 29, 2010, included among its eventual 186 cosponsors all 20 Texas Republicans plus two Democrats -- Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi and Henry Cuellar of Laredo -- from the 32-member Texas delegation.
...
We looped back to Angle with our findings on the cosponsors and the intent of the bill. Angle told us that he believes the Texas Republicans showed by cosponsoring the bill that they supported making a legal distinction between rape and forcible rape.

Additionally, the bill had sparked a heated debate in which major far left abortion advocates became unhinged.

The "Protect Life Act" would prohibit federal funding of abortions under the national health care overhaul. It also would prevent funding from being withheld from institutions that are opposed to providing abortions.
...
The heated emotions surrounding the abortion debate were on display at Tuesday's Senate Democratic news conference. Lautenberg said the Pitts and Smith bills sound "like a third-world country that's requiring women to wear head shawls, cover their faces even if they don't want to do it."

The emotional nature of the debate made any mention of abortion a misconstrued mess in the minds of the far left. This is the entire genesis of the false narrative attempting to tie Paul Ryan and the distinction between statutory rape and forcible rape to a Missouri candidate who mistakenly used the term "legitimate."

Rep. Paul Ryan has since clarified the situation by making a public statement that the term "forcible rape" is stock language when writing laws.

Can the media and the Obama campaign now stop with the lies? No.

President Obama and his allies in the media are a bunch of liars who try to use scare tactics against women. It is simply DISGUSTING. The government controlled media and the Democrats are a disgrace.