CSUEB prof comments on San Jose's crime stats
Associate Professor Dawna Komorosky, shown here with her beagle, Carly, is committed to educating the community about relationship violence and its connection with animal abuse. (By: Stephanie Secrest)
- July 22, 2013 5:00am
Dawna Komorosky, assistant professor of criminal justice for Cal State East Bay, provided an exclusive interview to the San Jose Mercury News concerning just released crime statistics for the city of San Jose.
Reporters Robert Salonga and Mark Emmons wrote that new stats showed a surprising drop in gang violence despite surging homicide count, "the 15.9 percent dip in gang violence and 10.6 drop in overall violent crime -- including the categories of rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- comes as a surprise considering how, through the end of June, San Jose had recorded 25 homicides. That tally has since risen to 29 as the city continues to outpace last year's figure of 46."
The countering trends of rising homicides and lower violent crime is curious, agreed Dawna Komorosky, an associate professor of criminal justice at Cal State East Bay. But she added that six months of data doesn't represent enough time to draw conclusions.
"My gut feeling is this might be because there has been so much change in that department," Komorosky said. "They've lost a lot of officers. But they also may be doing things differently, like targeting areas of high crime. It's hard to say why the homicide rate isn't lower, but maybe they've found something that works here."