Charlestown Defies Trend, Sees Crime Increase

Boston’s crime rate is down this year, both across the city and across most of the city’s neighborhoods. In fact, just one neighborhood saw an increase in its crime rate: Charlestown.

Crime in Charlestown climbed by 14 percent, led mostly by theft and attempted theft.

“The vast majority of those are car breaks,” said Sgt. Tom Lema

The preliminary police data showed 310 thefts and attempted thefts by Dec. 4 last year, compared with 407 through Dec. 4 2011.

Lema said police have made substantial arrests related to car break-ins, but that hasn’t stopped the numbers from rising. Many of the suspects, he said, may be drug addicts who have turned to stealing valuables from vehicles to feed their habit.

The best way to prevent these kinds of crimes, Lema said, is to keep valuables out of your car—or at least keep them out of sight.

“Thieves aren’t going to break into the car if they don’t see property in the car,” Lema said.

The silver lining to the data, Lema noted, is that more serious crimes have declined. Robberies and attempted robberies dropped from 41 to 27 reports; vehicle theft dropped from 73 to 60 and aggravated assault notched down from 52 to 50.

The neighborhood did see a slight increase in certain serious crimes, though: rape ticked up from three to four reports; burglary ticked up from 61 to 67 reports, and Charlestown has seen so far this year compared to zero murders recorded last year.

City-wide, crime dipped by nine percent, and some of the biggest declines came form districts A-1 and A-7—better known as nearby Downtown and East Boston—where crime rates dropped 13 percent and 16 percent respectively.