The Oro Valley Police Department has published key statistics on the 2021 year of operations. Results have not changed much from prior years, though there is an uptick in theft.
Really, though, strong results considering that the town continues to add residents each year.
Burglaries remain low... Assaults up a bit
Traffic as usual
The traffic division issued almost 3,400 traffic citations in 2021. This is comparable to the number of citations issued in 2019. Both of those years saw a greater number of citations in 2020 when there was far less road travel because of the pandemic. More than 400 of the traffic citations were related to DUI. There were 567 crashes. Unfortunately, three of these were fatal crashes
An uptick in theft
Theft is by far the most significant crime in town. This year there were 555 thefts. Thats 10% more than in the prior two years. We've seen some evidence of the increase in theft in requests to residents by the department to identify individual in photos taken of those allegedly stealing in our retail stores.
Response times are quick
If you had a big problem in 2021 and you needed a cop, you got one quickly! The average response time to the most important call was less than four minutes. Indeed, if you had any problem at all and you needed a cop, you got one quickly. The average response time for even the lowest priority call was under seven minutes. All this service delivered in response to almost 3.200 calls during the year. (See panel that follows). There were other important calls, including more than 500 residential alarm responses to more than 1,400 first aid calls. All responses were delivered over 36 square miles of coverage!
It's nice to feel safe a home and Oro Valley appears to be a place where you can do just that. There were 19 residential burglaries. This is a small number in relation to the thousands of residences in our community. One of our observations is that the number of residential burglaries has remained low even though the number of apartments in our community have increased. There were 108 assaults. This on par with 2019 and 8 more than last year. There were 2 robberies reported.
Traffic as usual
The traffic division issued almost 3,400 traffic citations in 2021. This is comparable to the number of citations issued in 2019. Both of those years saw a greater number of citations in 2020 when there was far less road travel because of the pandemic. More than 400 of the traffic citations were related to DUI. There were 567 crashes. Unfortunately, three of these were fatal crashes
An uptick in theft
Theft is by far the most significant crime in town. This year there were 555 thefts. Thats 10% more than in the prior two years. We've seen some evidence of the increase in theft in requests to residents by the department to identify individual in photos taken of those allegedly stealing in our retail stores.
A safe community
It is our conclusion, and, we suspect, the conclusion of many, that Oro Valley remains a safe community thanks to the hard work of our police officers.
Thank you for a job well done!
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