This expert Q&A with Dr. Grant Drawve, VP of Research and Innovation, andWalter Palmer, COO/EVP at CAP Index, was originally featured in Loss Prevention Magazine’s May 2024 Ask the Expert Column.
It is the second installment in our series exploring how CAP Index leaders view crime data, evaluate trends, and cut through the noise of headlines and statistics. The discussion highlights how to understand true crime rates and, most importantly, how organizations can use data and modeling to improve operations, lower risks, and properly allocate resources.
Why Crime Trends Don’t Always Move in the Same Direction
LPM: In our last conversation, you emphasized that crime trends don’t all move in the same direction and that location and crime type matter. Can you elaborate?
Dr. Grant Drawve: Depending on the crime types being analyzed, you’ll see different offenders, targets, and opportunities, along with varying levels of guardianship (such as security or bystanders). Take the COID-19 shutdowns as an example. With more people at home, burglary in residential neighborhoods decreased due to increased guardianship. But in mixed-use areas with residential, commercial, and industrial activity, certain crimes increased as non-residents still accessed those areas. We studied this in Charlotte, North Carolina, from 2021-2023. Charlotte was chosen because it’s a large city not often featured in national crime headlines, it has diverse land use, and it provides rich crime data through the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department.
Explore the findings here: Charlotte Crime Trends Dashboard
Why “Place Matters” in Crime Analysis
LPM: CAP Index often notes that “place matters”. How does location affect crime rates, even within the same crime type?
Drawve: Looking at Charlotte data from 2022 to 2023, robbery decreased by 7 percent, while simple assault and burglarly increased by 4 percent and 2 percent. That’s the city wide picture. But when we drill down into specific location types, the patterns change:
- Retail locations (such as convenience stores, supermarkets, malls, and gas stations) saw a decrease in burglary and robbery but an increase in simple assault.
- Office and commercial buildings experienced the opposite trend—fewer assaults and burglaries but more robberies.
This proves why citywide crime statistics can be misleading. You need location-specific analysis to understand true crime risk.
Walter Palmer: Another caution is percentages. For example, retail robbery decreased by 2.7 percent. But in real terms, that’s only 11 fewer incidents across all of Charlotte. For a retailer, that’s not a meaningful difference unless those changes are concentrated in their stores.
Why Neighborhood-Level Crime Analysis Matters
LPM: What happens when organizations analyze crime at a neighborhood level?
Drawve: It adds another important layer. At CAP Index, we often analyze crime by census block groups, which serve as a proxy for neighborhoods. In Charlotte, assaults increased citywide by 3.6 percent in 2023. But that rise wasn’t evenly spread. Out of 484 block groups:
- 18 had significant increases in assaults
- 13 had significant decreases
- The rest stayed relatively stable
This shows that while a city may appear stable overall, significant changes can occur in smaller subsets of neighborhoods. That’s why granular, location-specific analysis is essential.
FAQs: Understanding True Crime Rates
Why can citywide crime statistics be misleading?
They often mask differences between neighborhoods and business types. A stable citywide trend can still hide local spikes.
What’s the value of neighborhood-level crime analysis?
It pinpoints where significant changes are happening so resources can be directed where they’re needed most.
How can CAP Index data help organizations?
By combining objective crime data with advanced modeling, CAP Index provides clear, location-specific intelligence that supports smarter resource allocation and risk management.
Turning Data Into Action
Crime risk isn’t uniform. Headlines can mislead, percentages can be deceptive, and citywide numbers don’t always tell the full story.
With CAP Index’s tools—including CRIMECAST Reports and dashboards like our Charlotte Crime Trends Resource—organizations gain the data-driven insights they need to make informed security decisions.
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