New statistics show the crime rate in New Orleans soared last year compared to 2006. Every category showed an increase, but some of the largest increases were in violent crime.

WWL

Thursday, New Orleans police rushed to an Algiers bank, where spokesmen said an officer Interrupted a robbery by two men and shots were fired.

Even veteran officers were shaking their heads at the continuing violence they encounter.

The 210 murders are a 31 percent jump over the year before. There was a 32 percent increase in rapes, and armed robberies jumped 71 percent. Violent crimes were up 53-percent, and the total number of crimes in New Orleans in 2007 jumped 32 percent.

The numbers are alarming news to two experts on crime fighting.

“These statistics bear out that the sentiments of the community that we have an unacceptably high crime rate,” said Rafael Goyeneche of the Metro Crime Commission,

Added Dr. John Penny, SUNO Criminologist, "I think that when you look at those kind of statistics, it only gives you as glimpse of how serious crime is in this city."

Goyeneche said the city pumped $5 million into police overtime late last year to boost crime fighting efforts, but that program is about to end.

“We need to look at places like New York City,” Penny said. “What are they doing to bring crime down, or other cities of that size?”

Said Goyeneche, “We have to have a strategy that is sustainable over the long run, because having police officers work 60-hour weeks indefinitely is not going to be achievable.”

Police said the city's growing post-Katrina population is actually bringing crime statistics down. Their fourth quarter statistics show seven more murders from September to December of last year than 2006, a 13 percent increase in the raw data.

But police said the city's population grew from 253,000 in 2006 to 318,000 by the end of 2007, which means that the murder rate per 100,000 residents actually declined.

“It doesn't ring true to me,” Penny said.

The Metropolitan Crime Commission said their calculations show that even using the police department's population figures, there was still a four percent increase in murders last year, a five percent hike in rapes and five percent more crimes overall.

“Even using the numbers that are most liberal on population estimates computing crime on a per capita basis, we are seeing a net increase in crime as a city,” Goyeneche said.

Penny said it is time to stop discussing crime, and time to start taking action, and he said the entire community needs to be involved.

“Until we get a hold of the family situation, get a grip on what the education arena is like, the academies are like, then we're not going to bring down appreciably the amount of crime in this city,” Penny said.

Penny said SUNO is planning what he called a ‘peace conference’ on April 12. The goal is to bring the community together to devise effective crime fighting strategies.