Santa Barbara Police chief’s bogus statistics
January 13, 2013
Cam Sanchez
Santa Barbara Police Chief Cam Sanchez’s claims that 50 percent of all burglary arrests in November were committed by former state prisoners released because of realignment has been shown to be completely false. [Noozhawk]
Speaking in front of the Santa Barbara City Council last week, Sanchez said that the early release of state prisoners through realignment has contributed to higher crime rates in the city, particularly with property crimes. He also claimed that the alleged increase had prompted him to move officers out of community oriented units and into the property crimes unit.
However, in November, only one burglary arrest was made and the suspect was not released early because of realignment. In October, there were six arrests made and one of the suspects had been involved in realignment.
Police department spokesman Riley Harwood confirmed the misstatements by the chief that Harwood said came from an unrelated statistic. When police do compliance checks on realignment subjects’ homes, the searches result in arrests 50 percent of the time, Harwood told Noozhawk.
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