Report shows city is home to largest concentration of former
inmates in Santa Clara County, with nearly eight parolees per 1,000
residents
Gilroy – The county’s highest concentration of parolees call South County home sweet home.
A report by the Morgan Hill Police Department revealed that both Gilroy and Morgan Hill have the highest number of parolees per 1,000 residents throughout Santa Clara County. And with figures more than twice as high than the county average, area police take a more aggressive approach to crime, attempting to squash it before it starts.
“We want zero crime, but that’s not reality. We go with the attitude, ‘Let’s be as proactive as we can,'” said Gilroy Police Sgt. Kurt Svardal. “We have known that on paper, we usually have one of the highest crime rates in Santa Clara County.”
Studies have shown that parolees have a high rate of recidivism and often end up back behind bars.
According to 2004 statistics, Gilroy houses 7.85 parolees per 1,000 residents – more than three times the county average of 2.37. Morgan Hill is distant second with 5.17.
“To me, it’s a clear indicator of a community’s vulnerability to criminals,” said Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming. “People who come out of prison are more likely to reoffend. We work very closely to keep track of parolees. We see them, we stop them. We search them. And very often we rearrest them … For a city our size, this is a pretty high amount of parolees. Gilroy’s is huge.”
One theory police have as to why more parolees live in South County is because it is the most affordable area in the county.
“I’m sure economics can play into it,” Svardal said. “Gilroy is still probably the most reasonable place to live in Santa Clara County, even though housing prices are out of control. Once a parolee is at large, their individual crime rate goes through the roof – that’s one of the reasons we have the Anti-Crime Team.”
The ACT unit was formed in 1992 in response to gang violence and continues to work to suppress gang activity and conducts narcotic investigations.
While both police departments try to take a more proactive stance with parolees – they are also the busiest agencies in the county, too. Officers from Morgan Hill and Gilroy responded to the most calls per year per officer, about 919 and 893 respectively.
A review of the major crimes reported to GPD showed that robberies were up 43 percent since 2004, assault is up 19 percent, and burglary rates increased 27 percent.
Gilroy also has the highest crime rate in the county – 3,955 per 100,000 residents. However, most of the crime is non-violent. The was one murder in 2005 and one in 2003. The number of reported rapes has decreased from 25 in 2002 to 15 in 2005.
According to Svardal, most police departments strive to have 1.5 police officers for every 1,000 residents.
“It has a positive influence on what happens in the community,” he said. “It seems to keep response times down and crime levels flat.”
Morgan Hill has less than one officer per 1,000 residents – the lowest rate in the county.
In 2002, Gilroy had 1.5, but that number has fallen to 1.38 as the population increased and officers were not added to maintain the level.
According to Svardal, when an agency has a low staffing rate, it may skew the crime rate.
“One issue you can have with extremely low staffing rates is because there are no officers to respond, or people get tired of waiting for a response, they just don’t bother to report a crime and that can work against you when you’re trying to get more staffing,” he said.
MHPD is currently in the process of hiring two additional officers.
“We’d like to have more, but we’re not there just now,” said Chief Cumming. “To add police officers is expensive … We’re busy, but the good news is we don’t have a lot of violent crime. Most of our crime is property crime.”
However, the agency has experienced a surge in gang-violence over the past six months.
Just last week, three teens were stabbed in a gang-related attack.
“We’re paying close attention to it, because (gang violence) needs to be stopped in its tracks,” Cumming said.
Morgan Hill’s gang problem was an issue in the past, but on a much smaller scale than Gilroy’s, he explained.
Increased police presence on the streets often helps to reduce criminal activity, but that isn’t the only thing to help suppress crime.
“It’s what you do with your people,” Cumming said. “If they’re deployed properly, they can make a huge impact … Gilroy is an example of a good department that takes their resources and targets their criminals.”
