Kamenetz, Police to Announce 2010 Crime Decrease

Baltimore County officials are expected to announce Thursday that crime in the county has decreased for a fourth straight year.

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, police Chief Jim Johnson and other county officials will make the announcement during an 11:30 a.m. news conference at the Public Safety building in Towson.

In October, then-County Executive James T. Smith Jr. announced that homicides during the first six months of 2010 .

Crime decreases for first six months of 2010. Source: Baltimore County Police

The crime statistics that will be released Thursday are expected to show that the trends of the first six months of 2010 continued through the end of the year.

In March, Kamenetz and police announced that the 20 homicides in the county in 2010 were than the year before. In 2009, there were a total of 31 homicides.

The 2010 homicide rate was 50 percent lower than it was in 2005.

In March, Johnson and other county officials credited better technology and law enforcement techniques with the reductions.

The decreases cited last year brought the crime rate in the county to its lowest level since 1975, county officials said at the time.

The decreases of the last four years come even as the county and the country recover from one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression of 1929.