Greater Density Leads to More Crime Says Fairfax County Police Department

In an article in yesterday's Fairfax Times, Gregg MacDonald reports that the Fairfax County Police Department briefed the County Board of Supervisors on the likely increase in crime that will go with that increasing residential, workforce, and visitor density.

With the advent of Metro adding to this already congested area (Tysons), (FCPD Captain Daniel Janickey, commander of the McLean District Station) told supervisors that based on anecdotal research conducted with mall property managers, hotel, restaurant and transportation leaders and the Metro Transit police, he expects an increase in area assaults, robberies, thefts, destruction of property and stolen vehicles once Metro opens.

“When you have an increase in population you will also have an increase in crime,” said Fairfax County Deputy Chief of Police Ed Roessler, who accompanied Janickey at the presentation.

Janickey told supervisors that significant amounts of crime at Tysons is already committed by offenders living outside Northern Virginia, including organized crime rings from New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, as well as D.C. residents who, after being arrested, admitted to coming to the area by train to commit crimes.

Click here to read the full article.  

The briefing by FCPD Captain Janickey echoes the results of research by Reston's Terry Maynard in January 2007--long before there was a Reston Task Force or an RCA Reston 2020 Committee--when the County was debating whether to increase the "population factor" (basically, the number of people allowed per acre) for Reston as plans for Metrorail began taking shape.  Mr. Maynard submitted the paper to the County Board of Supervisors for its consideration in connection the the "population factor" discussion.  He also provided a copy to the Chief, Fairfax County Police Department, for background.

Mr. Maynard's paper outlines the results of several major research studies on the issue of violent crime and density, including research by the National Academy of Sciences, and examines these results by comparing northern Virginia counties with the effects on crime rates of increasing density in other wealthy counties nationwide.  The paper, Violent Crime and Increased Population Density In Wealthy & Populous Counties, begins: 

Crime grows as population grows.  It grows for many reasons, but the growth is largely a function of a growing number of opportunities, criminals, and potential victims.  Of the categories of crime, violent crime—crimes against the person, including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as defined by the FBI in its Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system—most seriously affects quality of life.  It is the sometimes literally the sharp edge of crime and warrants special consideration in understanding the implications for Reston’s quality of life of the potential increase in Reston’s density by more than a quarter.  The most salient questions in looking at violent crime are whether population density is a determinant of violent crime and, if so, the extent to which violent crime rates grow as population density increases.   

The final graphic in the paper highlights the potential growth in the violent crimes and crime rate in Reston with increased residential density over a decade using multivariate analysis techniques:

Maynard explains these results this way:

If Reston were to “fill out” to near its maximum density—a 25 percent increase in population density—over the next decade, the regression suggests that the violent crime rate in Reston would rise by 60 percent and the number of violent crimes would virtually double from 57 to 113. 

The paper concludes:

In the end, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors may decide that it is worth the social and political cost to change the PRC zoning ordinance to accommodate more intensive development in Reston.  Before it does that, however, it ought to conduct a thorough, systematic analysis of the impact of population density increase on the full range of economic and quality of life values, not just violent crime.  From a Restonian’s perspective, this preliminary assessment suggests a decision to increase the community’s population allowed density by some 25 percent will lead to a substantial deterioration in a critical element of Reston’s quality of life—the risk of being a victim of violent crime.  In short, Reston would become a more dangerous place to live, work, and play.  

Of course, the County did not examine the prospective impacts from increased density and quickly passed the motion to allow increased population density in Reston.
 
The full paper is available here.