Crime down locally: Database lets you check your neighborhood

The FBI released crime data Monday showing violent crime up 1.3 percent nationally and 1.2 percent in Phoenix.

But the real question for most people is “How safe am I where I live and work?”

Now you can check Ahwatukee Foothills and your own neighborhood thanks to the Phoenix Police Department’s searchable database.

And in Ahwatukee Foothills the news is pretty good.

In 2006, the last full year that data is available, violent crimes in Ahwatukee Foothills stayed at 120, the same as the previous year, while property crimes dropped 16 percent to 2,171.

“We’re attributing that to the vigilance of the community,” Lt. Mark Tallman said, adding that more people calling in suspicious activity has helped police to make a 21 percent reduction in burglaries and 14 percent reduction in auto thefts.

Just because the area shows a crime decrease doesn’t mean people can leave their garage doors open or laptops in their car at night. Hot spots for burglaries from vehicles occur around Ray Road and 48th Street.

With the police database, areas as small as a few blocks can be searched to see how many burglaries, auto thefts, robberies or drug crimes have occurred.

To do your own research, visit www.phoenix.gov/POLICE. Near the bottom of the page is a link to the crime statistic’s database.

Ahwatukee Foothills is part of the South Mountain Precinct and has two beat areas: 434 and 435. You can search by city, city council district, beat or by grid, including areas where you work or live in the city of Phoenix.

The city is also broken into quarter-mile grids so that neighborhoods can be searched going back as far as 1996, although the computer maps that go with the online program make it difficult to read street names.

Ahwatukee Foothills is part of the South Mountain Precinct and has two beat areas: 434 and 435. You can search by city, city council district, beat or by grid, including areas where you work or live in the city of Phoenix.

The city is also broken into quarter-mile grids so that neighborhoods can be searched going back as far as 1996, although the computer maps that go with the online program make it difficult to read street names.

Doug Murphy can be reached at (480) 898-7914 or dmurphy@aztrib.com.