Is Modesto Predictive Policing Program Shifting Crime Outside City?

SALIDA (CBS13) — Modesto Police say new predictive policing software is helping them cut their crime rate, but a homeowner just outside the city limits says his neighborhood is being hit by a crime wave.

When CBS13's story on the program aired in November, Sean Howard reached out to us.

"The first thing I thought of, it seemed kind of counter to what we were experiencing out in this neighborhood," he said.

The Salida homeowner says posts on Nextdoor.com and Crimemapping.com suggest property crime in his neighborhood just outside the Modesto city limits is on the rise.

He's been hit several times.

"One was a car break-in, one I had actually people come to my backyard, and steal things," he said.

But Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson says this is one case where perception is not reality.

"Actually property crime is down in the unincorporated areas of Stanislaus County as well," he said.

He provided the crime statistics we asked for, breaking down Salida's calls for service for the year.

In the Top 10 list, No. 2 is burglar alarms. Almost all of those are false alarms, the sheriff says. Out of thousands of calls, only 2 percent are attributed to property crime.

Howard also wondered if the predictive policing program was just moving crime.

"Maybe with some of the other enforcement they're doing in Modesto rather than crime going down overall, it's just kind of shifting," he said.

But Christianson says numbers also show Modesto's program has not had a negative impact on his jurisdiction.

"Our property crime rates are in decline as much as the Modesto Police Department's and what the city is seeing," he said.

Sean says he'll keep checking Nextdoor and keep a close eye on the crime happening on his block.