SAN DIEGO — SANDAG has released its mid-year report covering crime statistics across the county for the first six months of the year. Overall crime is down, but researchers say that may not be a lasting trend.

“We’re seeing the numbers go down, but one year is not a trend and we’re only at six months of data, so we’ll see what happens with the rest of the year and we’ll see what happens in 2024,” said Dr. Cindy Burke, senior director of data science at SANDAG.

This is also the first report published by SANDAG using a new crime reporting system altogether, which is giving a much more detailed picture of crime in the county.

“We only had those seven crimes. It was either a violent crime or property crime,” Dr. Burke said.

Those crimes included: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle left.

Dr. Burke says current reporting now captures 52 crimes. Additionally, if one person committed several crimes, only the most egregious would be counted in previous reporting. Now up to 10 different crimes can be included for each incident.

The reporting tracks crimes against people, crimes against property and now with more crimes included, there is a crimes against society category.

For the first six months of 2023, crime is down overall in the three major categories compared to mid-year 2022. The crimes against people rate is 6% lower, crimes against property is 9% lower and crimes against society is 5% lower.

There were still four categories of crime that saw an increase, including aggravated assault.

Each year the data helps track public safety and effectiveness of crime prevention.

“Victimization surveys show only about a half of violent crime and a third of property crime are reported to police. Report the crime even if you think it doesn’t make a difference because the statistics matter in understanding where resources are needed,” Dr. Burke said.