Hawaii’s crime rate dropped in three of four counties in 2020

Overall Hawaii crime rates were down last year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2020 Uniform Crime Report. The decrease was apparently driven by a drop in reported offenses in Honolulu, Maui and Kauai counties, partially offset by an increase in Hawaii County.

Statewide, the rate for property crimes — burglaries, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft and arson — decreased, to 2,411 offenses per 100,000 people in 2020, from a rate of 2,869 per 100,000 in 2019. The 2020 rate for violent crime was 254 offenses per 100,000 people, down from 264 per 100,000. Among the crimes categorized as violent: murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

In Honolulu, crime counts dropped to their lowest tallies in recent years. Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said while it’s difficult to pinpoint the cause without further research, “it stands to reason that the pandemic, with its stay-at-home orders and other restrictions on businesses and activities, played a role” in deterring crimes such as shoplifting and burglaries.

He added, “Although we are happy to see that crime was down last year across the city, it does not mean that crime was down in every neighborhood. And these numbers are cold comfort to crime victims.”

Alm said his office is committed to working with the Honolulu Police Department to investigate and prosecute cases such as those involving offenders “who won’t stop stealing. … We must keep our focus on holding them accountable.”

Retired Circuit Court Judge Randal Lee, an assistant professor in criminal justice at Hawaii Pacific University, said the pandemic likely played a “major role” in lower crime rates, as community activity was curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions.

“Because people were bunkered in their homes, if crimes did occur, many times the crimes may have been committed by someone close like a family member, and therefore it wasn’t reported,” Lee said.

At the county level, the FBI report found that Honolulu had the lowest 2020 crime clearance rates. HPD cleared 3.9% of property crimes, down from 5.3% the previous year. HPD’s rate for clearing violent crimes, meanwhile, increased to 26.4%, from 25% in 2019.

Maui County had the top 2020 rate for clearing violent crime cases, 64%, followed by Hawaii and Kauai counties with 49% and 43%, respectively. For property crimes, the 2020 rates were 15% for Hawaii and Kauai, and 10.5% for Maui.

According to the FBI, an offense is cleared — or solved for crime reporting purposes — if at least one person has been arrested, charged with the commission of the offense and turned over to the courts for prosecution. Offenses also may be classified as cleared if an offender is identified and charged but extraordinary circumstances prevent an agency from immediately finding and arresting the suspect.

Lee said Honolulu’s lower clearance rate is concerning, and noted that HPD efforts to maintain or improve the rate may have been hindered by county directives tasking police with enforcing state COVID-19 emergency orders in addition to everyday policing.

According to HPD, at a joint law enforcement meeting in September, Honolulu’s top violent crime areas include drug crimes involving firearms, and game rooms and gambling activity. Compared with cities of similar size, HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said, Honolulu has a low violent-crime rate but a slightly higher-than-average rate for property crimes.

State officials said the FBI’s report should be viewed as an estimate, as it relies on law enforcement agencies volunteering statistics by a hard national deadline, leading to errors as statistics are reviewed and finalized at the county and state level throughout the summer.

Further clouding the statistical picture, only Honolulu participates in the National Incident-Based Reporting System used by the FBI. Kauai, Maui and Hawaii counties are working toward it but currently use the Summary Reporting System that the FBI phased out this year.

Another important caveat, according to Paul Perrone, chief of research and statistics for the state Department of the Attorney General, is that the use of estimated data for agencies that provided at least six months, but less than 12 months, of data for a given year is not clearly indicated by the FBI.

Perrone said the published figures are inconsistent with the complete data published in state program reports. The Attorney General’s Office manages the state uniform crime reporting program and publishes Crime in Hawaii utilizing the UCR format each year.

“Due to differences in the way that the data is captured at the federal and state levels, there has always been a difference between the federal and state stats. In 2018 and 2019, unlike years prior, the Honolulu Police Department submitted stats directly to the FBI, while the state and three counties continued to adopt and transition to NIBRS,” Yu said in a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“In 2020, HPD returned to submitting stats to the state (Attorney General’s Office) for compilation and submission to the FBI. We are currently looking into the 2020 stats to determine the causes for the drop in the clearance rate” for property crimes, she said.

The FBI published HPD’s uncorrected data for 2020, 2019 and 2018, essentially what it had in-hand at the time of the national deadline in March, rather than the police department’s revised data which was submitted in June, according to state officials.

The UCR Program relies on 400 select law enforcement agencies to submit their data via NIBRS, according to the FBI. In 2020, there were 18,619 law enforcement agencies eligible to participate in the UCR Program, and of those, 15,897 submitted data.

FBI Honolulu Field Office Special Agent in Charge Steven B. Merrill said, “Enlarging the NIBRS data collec­tion will allow for better analysis and lead to a more complete picture of crime in the U.S.”

The FBI UCR Program is voluntary, and some states have mandates to report to the state but nothing in place to report to the national level.

“Still, thousands of local agencies voluntarily report crime data to their certified state UCR Programs in accordance with the state’s data-­quality procedures, which ultimately meet the specifications of the FBI UCR Program. In turn, the states submit these agencies’ data to the FBI’s specifications, ” Merrill said. “Although there are no sanctions available to address nonreporting agencies or those who continually report incomplete data, the FBI UCR Program has always encouraged full participation.”

Gary H. Yamashiroya, a former prosecutor and retired Chicago police officer who serves as special assistant to state Attorney General Clare Connors, said while the FBI report points to a decrease in 2020 statewide crime rates here, “one crime is one victim too many.”

He added, “We ask that neighbors and family members keep an eye out for each other and report if they see or hear anything of concern, and as always, stay aware, safe and healthy.”