Crime statistics presented Tuesday by Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan and Police Chief Mark Mew show declines in four of seven categories of crime in the city last year, including murder, robbery and theft.
Those decreases mean an overall reduction in crime over the past five years when compared to the previous five years, they said. In 2014, the number of reported crimes totaled 14,136, down by 340 from the previous year.
"It's a good story for Anchorage. It shows crime is trending in the right direction," said Sullivan. "We still have more work to do, obviously."
Aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle thefts increased in 2014, according to the data.
Instances of forcible rape decreased last year, which followed a significant increase in 2013. Mew attributed that increase to a revised definition of rape and, as a result, how statistics are collected.
The Anchorage Police Department submitted the data for the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, which generally comes out in September or October. The statistics will serve as the first portion of the police department's own annual crime report due later this year, Mew said.
Here are the shifts in the seven categories of crimes from 2013 to 2014:
• Murder and non-negligent homicides dropped from 14 to 12.
• Forcible rapes decreased from 408 to 392.
• Robberies decreased from 522 to 496.
• Aggravated assault jumped from 1,491 to 1,705.
• Burglaries had a slight increase from 1,318 to 1,375.
• Larceny and thefts fell from 9,854 to 9,217.
• Motor vehicle thefts increased from 869 to 939.
Mew declined to speculate on the reasons behind the increases and decreases of certain crimes. He said determining that requires the help of academics, and that process takes substantially more time.
In the first two months of 2015, shootings and murders spiked in Anchorage, prompting a debate about public safety and police staffing that influenced the recent mayoral campaign. Asked if they thought the crime rate would continue on a declining trend over the next year, Mew and Sullivan said it's too early to predict.
Mew said in late January the jump in violence appeared to be drug-related and the police department formed a temporary task force to suppress those crimes.
The task force is still working to prevent homicides and shootings, Mew said. More recent murders, he said, resulted from a variety of circumstances -- two domestic violence-related slayings, an intoxicated stabbing and the suspicious death of an infant.
"Probably some drugs in there too," Mew said.
There were no homicides in April, he added. The most recent homicide came May 3, when a man was killed in a stabbing at a trailer park.
The Community Action Policing officers have been taken off the task force. They were reassigned to work on homeless issues, Mew said, as makeshift camps pop up in the summer and tend to aggravate residents more frequently.