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VALDOSTA Responding to what he believes is a public perception that crime is out of control, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress presented statistics to the city council this week demonstrating an overall decline in crime for more than a decade and said the perception may be due to his departments openness with the media.

I think weve put procedures in place that sometimes create a misconception that crime is out of control, said Childress. Just because you see it in the media doesnt mean crime is out of control. It means we provided access to the media.

In pursuing accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), Childress said his department sought to create transparency, making it easier for the public to learn about crime in Valdosta that otherwise might have gone unnoticed.

Part of our accreditation is that we are open with the media. This is extremely important because this is not always the norm with law enforcement, said Childress. But in this department, I dont look at media as the media. I look at it as the public.

The statistics Childress shared with the city council Tuesday show that Part 1 Crimes, serious crimes tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dropped a little more than 11 percent from 2000 to 2013. Childress finds the drop remarkable, saying the crime rate should have gone up given the citys population increase of more than 13,000 people.

A lot of folks attribute crime to something thats completely irrelevant. Crime doesnt care about race, sex, religion--any of that. In reality, it looks at population density and other factors like the size of your city, said Childress. If you take a box and put three people in there, youre probably going to have low crime rates. But if you put 50 people in that box, youre going to have a higher crime rate because its human nature.

Childresss statistics show a drop in instances of rape, robbery, aggravated assault, motor vehicle theft and larceny over the past 13 years. The number of arson incidents has increased slightly, and there were 32 homicides since 2000, 30 of which have been cleared by arrest.

Burglary is the only Part 1 Crime that has seen a significant increase over the past 13 years, and VPD has initiated several programs to address the issue, including a new burglary unit and real-time crime analysis maps with hot zones for burglaries emailed to officers in the field. Childress believes these initiatives are already yielding positive results.

Since the initiation of the burglary unit, burglary rates have dropped dramatically for March 2014, said Childress. We are now using a prediction system to try to tell us where to go. It isnt perfect, but it has helped us solve several burglaries already.

Childress attributes the overall drop in crime rates to an improved economy, more officers on patrol, training and improved investigations. Childress also believes that new technology has been important in investigating cases and providing enough evidence for a conviction.

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Numbers show overall drop in crime in Valdosta