Major crimes in Pennington County increased nearly 7 percent in 2007 from the previous year, according to statistics released by the South Dakota Attorney General's Office.

Helping to boost the number was an increase in violent crimes such as burglary, murder, rape and aggravated assault. The only crime down from last year was robbery.

Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender said that although city law enforcement continues do its best to keep criminals at bay, crime rates are still climbing.

"I think we have marginal gains on most categories of major crimes," he said. "And it's something that we'll be working on every day for the rest of our lives, trying to get a handle on these things."

Allender blames the increase on a variety of factors, including simply an increase in population. According to the statistics provided by the attorney general's office, the population for Pennington County increased by 1.7 percent, or 2,674 people, from 2006 to 2007.

While he admits that crime is increasing, Allender said some of the reasons for the increases are circumstantial.

For example, the biggest increase was a 300 percent jump in murders. Although that kind of increase would cause panic in large cities such as Oakland or Los Angeles, Allender said, the increase in Rapid City only amounts to an increase from one murder to four murders.

Allender said murder statistics have been up and down in the past 10 years, but never very high. He said the murders that occur in Rapid City are almost always solved and are rarely random.

Another category, larceny - a diverse category including, for example, items stolen out of cars or thefts in a locker room - was up 7.6 percent in 2007 compared to 2006. Burglary numbers were up 2.7 percent.

Those are both categories the police would like to see drop because the crimes are preventable.

"Obviously, I'm concerned about the burglary and the larceny things," Allender said. "I think it's ridiculous. We find a number of victims that make stealing easy."

People can prevent many of the burglaries and larcenies by locking up items and being watchful neighbors. Allender said a good percentage of those types of crimes occur when thieves come upon vehicles or cars that are unlocked.

Pennington County Chief Deputy State's Attorney Kevin Krull said there may be another explanation of the higher number of thefts and burglaries.

"A significant number of our theft cases you can trace them back to drugs," Krull said.

Many times, drug addicts will steal items in order to support their habits, he said.

Although not specifically broken down among the index crimes, Krull believes there are certain trends going on with drug offenses.

He said the number of methamphetamine users seems to be going down, although abusers of cocaine and prescription medications seem to be increasing.

Krull said the decrease in meth could be attributed to increased police awareness and prevention, as well as increased treatment programs.

He believes that an increase in crime may be related to the increase in population.

"There's just a slow but steady increase with all types of crime, which kind of corresponds to a slow population growth," Krull said.

Some of the blame could also be placed on the economy, he said.

Other increases for 2007 were:

rape - 11 percent

aggravated assault - 5.5 percent

motor vehicle theft - 3.7 percent

arson - 72 percent

Allender said the arson increase is misleading, because most of the cases in 2007 were minor incidents such as small fires lit in garbage cans by children.

The general crime increase concerns Allender, but he believes citizens can take many steps to avoid becoming a victim, including locking their houses and cars and watching out for their neighbors.

Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com