A disturbing trend can be seen when looking at this year’s crime statistics in the SCV. Reports by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department point to the crime rate rising in Santa Clarita.

According to all 23 reporting Sheriff’s Department districts, Santa Clarita has the third highest rate of increase in violent crimes, beaten only by Carson and Cerritos.

From January to July of this year, the violent crime rate in the Santa Clarita Valley has risen 50%. Compare that to the increase of 39.5% during the same period in 2011 and you can see a pretty large gap of 10.5%.

If you include August in this data, though, the crime rate increase for the year drops from 50% to 31.7%. August, it seems, is too hot even for criminals.

On the bright side, while the violent crime rate is increasing, it isn’t increasing at the rate it has been over the past several years. If you were to compare rate of increase over the past 5 years, you would notice that the rate of increase has actually declined by 14.7%.

The fastest growing crime in the Santa Clarita Valley is unfortunately, forcible rape with an increase of  65.4%, or 23 individual instances. There have been no homicides thus far, and that is something to be thankful for. Last year there were three separate incidents of homicide by this date.

All in all, while the crime rate is steadily increasing, it seems that the Sheriff’s Department is getting the better of it, bit by bit.

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