Towns report decrease in crime

Crime has declined in many communities across the region, according to the latest figures from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Reports of violent crime -- murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault -- dropped in 18 of the 30 communities that had FBI statistics available for 2004 and 2005.

The decrease in property crime was similar. Of the 36 cities and towns with FBI data for both years, 22 experienced decreases.

The crime trends cut across geographic, demographic, and economic lines, grouping communities that are rich and poor, large and small, near and not-so-near Boston.

But, despite the welcome drop in crime in most reporting towns, interviews with local law enforcement officers show that police are still busy investigating Internet crimes, bank robberies, break-ins, and thefts of GPS navigation systems.

And some police departments reported spikes in particular crimes. For example, the FBI data show that aggravated assaults reported in Hingham increased from 12 incidents in 2004 to 33 in 2005.

Mansfield, one of the towns that reported a jump in crime, saw breaking-and-entering complaints climb 75 percent between 2004 and 2005, and motor vehicle burglaries increase by more than a third, according to Mansfield's 2005 annual town report.

Internet crimes are on the rise across the country, and Massachusetts and its suburbs are no exception. Complaints to the FBI about Internet crime more than doubled between 2004 and 2005, with Internet auction fraud the most reported offense.

Officer Tracey A. Juda, the court prosecutor for the Mansfield Police Department, said the growth of cybercrime presents many challenges to local investigators. Scammers often mask their computers' Internet addresses, making them difficult to trace. And even if authorities are successful, it can become a jurisdictional nightmare.

``It's very hard to haul someone in... and it's very hard to prosecute" these cases, she said. ``It's getting more and more sophisticated. They're coming out of different countries... or they might be in the next town over, for all we know.

``They cross not only state lines now," but international borders as well, Juda said. ``We just had one through Canada. We contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They just laugh at us because they can't do anything, either."

According to police, underage drinking also continues to be a problem in Mansfield, a town with 22,500 residents and home to the Tweeter Center, the popular concert venue. In an effort to combat drug and alcohol abuse, Mansfield police conducted 1,350 pharmacy walk-throughs and 1,750 checks on alcohol establishments last year.

In Braintree, authorities have seen an increase in drug use and bank robberies lately, according to Deputy Chief Russell Jenkins. This year alone, robbers have targeted the Braintree Cooperative Bank, Telephone Workers' Credit Union, Eastern Bank, and Citizens Bank. Arrests have been made in all but one of those cases.

Braintree officers are also catching more people using drugs in the open, Jenkins said. These are not drug deals but people using drugs in parked cars, he said.

``It's not like they're on a bench in South Braintree Square.... It's people sitting in cars," Jenkins said. Braintree officers are catching more people ``strapping elastic bands around their arms in parking lots, cutting their cocaine on CD cases on their center console," he said.

``There's definitely an increase in drugs, definitely," he said. ``Drug arrests in general have gone up." Cocaine, heroin, and OxyContin are popular, he said.

Another trend being followed by Braintree police is the theft of GPS navigation systems from cars. The thefts are not only at the South Shore Plaza and Sheraton Hotel parking lot; GPS devices have been snatched from cars all over town, according to Jenkins. ``They're very popular devices to steal," he said.

Meanwhile, other towns south of Boston are grappling with break-ins.

In Carver, residents of the Pine Tree Village mobile home park organized the town's first neighborhood crime watch after a rash of break-ins and the thefts of five motorcycles over the summer.

In the neighboring town of Middleborough, break-ins went up last year, from 71 in 2004 to 98 in 2005, while reports of motor vehicle theft went down, from 34 in 2004 to 29 in 2005.

The Middleborough Police Department has seen a spike in break-ins recently; there were at least 10 between Sept. 21 and Oct. 12. Thieves were breaking into homes and sheds in the east and west parts of town during the daytime, when residents were not home, according to police.

``In towns like Middleborough, being rural, there are spikes and then tremendous decreases in home breaks," said Middleborough Police Chief Gary Russell. ``They come in spurts. If you catch somebody, you solve 90 percent of the breaks you had. You catch one, the breaks stop. It's sporadic."

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.