That is because the total number of assaults was actually higher in 2007 than the website says, Nalbach said.
Earlier this month, the Jersey City Reporter reported that violent crime was up in Jersey City by 10 percent.
The Reporter used the Uniform Crime Reports on the Police Department's website to note a rise in non-violent and violent crimes in the first six months of 2008, as compared with the same period of time in 2007.
The numbers on the JCPD website (www.njjcpd.org) are first collected by the Jersey City Police Department, then reported to the New Jersey State Police, who check them for accuracy. Then the JCPD puts them on the Web as official Uniform Crime Statistics.
Nalbach said that the non-violent crime statistics on the website are correct. However, the violent crime statistics don't tell the whole story, he said.
He noted that they only include aggravated assault and not simple assault. While simple assaults may not be as serious, Nalbach said that they should be included in violent crimes.
He said that when all assaults are totaled, including domestic assaults and assaults on a police officer, then assaults overall are down.
Based on the statistics provided by Nalbach, there was a 6 percent decrease in violent crime from last year to this year.
In the reports provided by Nalbach, there were 2,309 violent crime incidents between January and June of this year, instead of the 1,269 violent incidents reflected in the reports on the Web site.
And in the first half of 2007, there were 2,457 violent crime incidents as opposed to 1,157 at the same time last year.
Nalbach says that this shows that violent crime is down slightly, rather than up.
Non-violent crime, including burglary and car theft, is still up. The reports on the web showed that from Jan. 1 to June 30 of 2008, there were 3,443 non-violent incidents. The year before, there were 3,126 reported during the first six months.
Nalbach's numbers are very similar: 3,442 non-violent crimes for 2008 and 3,124 for 2007.What makes an assault 'simple'
Nalbach's reports list both simple and aggravated assaults, as opposed to the web site, which only includes aggravated assaults.
Nalbach said that an assault is considered "simple" are when no weapon is employed and there is no serious or aggravated injury to the victim.
Only aggravated assaults are included in the UCR on the Web site for the COMPSTAT (Computer Statistics) program, used by the Jersey City Police Department to track crime incidents, and to generate electronic pin maps of crime locations for a faster and better response.
Nalbach said that the web reports also do not include assaults on police officers during an arrest, which are seen as an assault on the officer and not a public crime, and assaults during domestic disputes.
There may be a reason for the latter. Nalbach said that with the domestic disputes, he estimates 80 percent of the complaints are dropped before they go to court.
"We use different stats that are useful for us," said Nalbach, referring to the information that ends up in the UCR on the JCPD Web site. Uncounted homicides
The information offered by Nalbach also showed there were nine homicides from January to June 2007, as opposed to seven tallied from the crime reports on the police department's Web site.
Since there were more in 2007, that means that the increase in murders from last year to this one was smaller.
Nalbach's report for 2008 showed 15 homicides during the first six months of this year, reflecting the same amount tallied from the Web-based crime reports.
The new homicide numbers reflect a 67 percent increase from last year.
Nalbach said that in 2007, there were two homicides that had not been included at first, because the cases had not been ruled homicides initially. Titans of prevention
Nalbach said the police employ groups of officers known as "Titan Teams" to certain hotspots in the city whenever they find spikes in certain crime categories such as robbery.
A team consists of eight officers who work in six-hour shifts to deal intensively with a specific crime to lower them.
Nalbach admitted that crime fighting is more difficult in the summer months for the JCPD, as 20 percent of the 893-member police force takes vacations from May 15 to Sept. 15, according to their work contract, and another 15 percent take days off for various reasons.
But Nalbach, who referred to himself as a "lifelong cynic," tried to look on the bright side of what is still a rise in crime from last year, which he attributed in part to the economy.
"Our stats for a city this size are, by and large, pretty good," Nalbach said. "Could it be better? Sure, it can ...we would like zero crime." Comments on this story can be sent to rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.
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