DECATUR - Decatur's overall crime rate decreased 14.3 percent in 2007, the fifth consecutive year for a decline, with seven of eight categories of reported crimes showing a decrease.

Decatur's decrease from 4,600 reported crimes in 2006 to 3,940 reported crimes in 2007 far exceeded the 3.6 percent decrease for Illinois as a whole. The state's total reported crimes were 456,085 last year, down from 470,730 the prior year.

Unlike 2006, when murders and robberies increased statewide, none of the eight index crime categories increased statewide last year, according to figures released this week by the Illinois State Police.

"As pleased as I am with an overall decrease by 3.6 percent in the crime rate and a decrease in every category, law enforcement must remain diligent," State Police Director Larry G. Trent said in a statement released with the annual statistics. "Law enforcement cannot get complacent as a result of this overall decrease. We must ensure that resources and manpower are utilized effectively to maintain this trend."

The crime statistics are composed of offenses considered to be the most prevalent and apt to be reported to law enforcement agencies. They are divided into violent crimes against persons (murder, criminal sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery or assault) and crimes against property (burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson).

Decatur Police Chief James Anderson said he would like to be able to say the police department caused the decrease in crime last year but cannot do so because crime is cyclical.

Still, the department did implement anti-crime teams in several inner-city neighborhoods, which may have contributed to the decrease, Anderson said.

"Officers on those teams are there to have people tell them their problems," Anderson said. "A lot of organizations - the courts, schools and the probation office - did things differently last year, trying to make a difference."

For example, the Rev. Leroy Smith Jr. continued to operate the transitional jobs program at The Promise Community Center in an effort to get people coming out of prison back into the work force so they are productive, taxpaying citizens, said Anderson, who sits on the program's board of directors.

"There are over 600 prison parolees living in Macon County," Anderson said. "If they have a job, that's a bonus."

The work of the anti-crime teams has been funded by federal grants under the Weed and Seed and Project Safe Neighborhoods programs, Anderson said. The latter grant was cut this year, but his department is working to find money within its own resources to hire officers on overtime to continue the anti-crime teams' efforts, he said.

"There are three teams, with a sergeant in charge of each," Anderson said. "They focus on each neighborhood's major problems. If it's an abandoned house, we try to get it torn down. If it's a drug house, we try to get the street crimes unit to make some drug buys there and get it shut down.

"These are problems that have developed over the last 30 years, and we can't solve them overnight, but we can't ignore them either. The Safe Neighborhoods grant brought us money for equipment and overtime hiring. Now we're pretty well set on equipment, so we just have to come up with the overtime money."

The only one of Decatur's eight index crimes to record an increase last year was criminal sexual assaults, which increased to 95 from 72 in 2006, a 31.9 percent increase.

"What we're hoping is that more people are reporting these crimes," said Peg Kovach, executive director of the Growing Strong Sexual Assault Center, which works with sexual assault victims and seeks to educate the public about the crimes.

"Rape is the silent crime," Kovach said. "Men and women find it hard to talk about it, so it often is underreported. I hope the information being spread by the media that this is a crime will cause more people to come forward."

Growing Strong also is out in the community talking with teenagers and younger children about reporting sexual assault, Kovach said. "We hope we are freeing people to come forward and report it."

Anderson said so far in 2008, reported crimes are continuing to decline from the 2007 level. He said there is one group whose involvement in violent crimes appears to be increasing, and that is teenage minors.

"We do not have a juvenile detention center here, so we are detaining more youth in the Sangamon County facility and, when that is full as it is now, we use Peoria, then Bloomington and even St. Clair County's facility," Anderson said.

During the city's fiscal year that ended April 30, 141 juveniles were detained, Anderson said. From May 1 to the end of October an additional 73 juveniles were detained.

"We don't detain someone from stealing from a store," Anderson said. "These are robbers and shooters, people with guns."

Experts who study national crime statistics have found that having more young people ages 10 to 17 in a community often is an accurate predictor of an increase in crime because that is the age range in which criminal activity usually begins.

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