On the campaign trail this fall, local and statewide politicians said one main topic was on Alaskans’ minds — crime. People from all around the state were sharing their stories about how drug use and crime had affected their lives. Public safety was a hot topic in Juneau all year long, and we’ve compiled some of 2018’s biggest crime stories.<\/p>\n
Property crime spikes and declines<\/strong><\/p>\n This February, there were more burglaries than there were days in the month<\/a>, according to Juneau Police Department statistics. That encapsulated a trend of rising property crime in the city, as burglaries increased by more than 60 percent from 2014-2015 and by more than 83 percent from 2015-2016.<\/p>\n Statistics that came out in summer 2018 showed that the number of burglaries was starting to level out. Burglaries in Juneau increased by about 5 percent from 2016-2017, according to the state’s Uniform Crime Report released in August<\/a>. In addition, early returns on crime in 2018 showed crimes such as burglary, aggravated assault and robbery were actually on the decline<\/a>. JPD Chief Ed Mercer told the Chamber of Commerce this summer that the number of these crimes in the first quarter of 2018 were down by 18 percent compared to the first quarter of 2017.<\/p>\n