In the Hudson Valley, crime declined in two cities, Middletown and Poughkeepsie, both roughly the same size and with the same population as Kingston. Over the first 11 months of 2011, reports of serious crime dropped by 10 percent in Poughkeepsie and 16.2 percent in Middletown over the same period in 2010. In absolute terms, however, both communities experienced more serious crimes than Kingston, with Middletown logging 1,008 Part One crimes, and Poughkeepsie 1,220 during the first 11 months of 2011. In Newburgh, despite an ongoing effort by federal law enforcement agencies to dismantle entrenched street gangs, crime was up by 6.7 percent during the first 11 months of 2011 with 1,610 serious crimes recorded. The 2011 numbers also show the continuation of a trend of generally decreasing crime rates in Kingston over the past decade. A four-year stretch in the early and mid-2000s, which saw the city log over 1,000 serious crimes each year, ended in 2006 when there were 887 reported Part One crimes. Those crimes have continued trending downward ever since.
But Tinti acknowledged that the numbers, which do not track misdemeanor crimes or quality-of-life issues like prostitution, graffiti and open-air drug sales, don’t tell the whole story.
“For a city of our size with the [relatively small] number of crimes reported, you can only read so much into these stats,” said Tinti. “There are a lot of other factors.”
In 2012, Tinti said, he planned to continue the emphasis on proactive policing in the city’s most troubled neighborhoods. Tinti added he would also emphasize crime prevention education — advising citizens to always keep their car doors locked for example — as an important tool to address the burglaries and larcenies which constitute the vast majority of felony-level crimes in the city.
“That combination of enforcement and education is really going to be the key,” said Tinti.
