A Look At Criminal Activity This Year

Patch has compiled and analyzed the Village of Larchmont's and Town and Village of Mamaroneck's police blotter to uncover which crimes are the most frequent, which are most uncommon, which months house the most criminal activity and more.

In doing so, we confirmed obvious trends (an overwhelming amount of DWIs occur in the early morning) and discovered some odd statistics (most DWIs occur in the winter months).

Read on, and look to our charts, for more information.

The Village of Mamaroneck 

The data used for the Village of Mamaroneck study includes approximately 100 incidents. We've excluded non-criminal events, like automobile accidents, and minor incidents to make the results as clear as possible.

The most common crime in the Village of Mamaroneck in the past five months has been larceny—or theft of property. Most instances took place during the late night or early morning, consisted of items being stolen from vehicles and infrequently resulted in arrests.

"Most of these vehicles were unlocked," said Lt. James Gaffney, the department's public information officer. "If you don't make it difficult [for perpetrators], you're giving them an opportunity."

The second most common crime in the village was Vehicle & Traffic Law arrests. Nearly all of these incidents were the result of officers pulling over drivers for traffic infractions, and consequently finding their driving privileges had been suspended. Most of the perpetrators were from outside of the village.

Burglaries represented 10 percent of all crimes and involved several cases of jewelry missing from a residence with no signs of forced entry. Home burglaries were more common than business burglaries, and roughly half of the burglaries showed signs of forced entry. No arrests were made.

Another common crime in the Village of Mamaroneck in the past five months has been criminal mischief, a crime against property that is generally treated as a misdemeanor. The majority of criminal mischief incidents were similar to larceny incidents: they involved vehicles and took place late at night or early in the morning—cars were scratched, written on and dented.

In nearly all cases, no arrests were made for criminal mischief; the majority of village arrests lies in DWI and Traffic & Vehicle Law arrests, according to our study.

The village's crimes were spread fairly evenly over the course of the past four months— had they not been, it would not have been because of a specific trend, according to Gaffney.

"Circumstances change from month to month, and a lot of factors are at work," he said. "No single trend will influence crime during a given month."

The Town of Mamaroneck

The data used for the Town of Mamaroneck study includes approximately 50  incidents—again, non-criminal and minor incidents have been excluded.

Criminal mischief and larceny were the two most common crimes. Similar to the Village of Mamaroneck, most of the town's criminal mischief incidents involved parked vehicles and occurred in the late night or early morning hours. Larceny, too, involved vehicles—numerous unlocked cars were entered overnight, and property like GPSs and cameras were stolen. Few of the criminal mischief or larceny incidents ended in arrest.

Burglaries represented six percent of the crimes, with most of the cases showing signs of forced entry and few items missing. No arrests have been made.

The Town of Mamaroneck had one case of armed robbery in the month of January. Read more about it here.

Crimes per month in the Town of Mamaroneck were disproportionate, with more than twice as much criminal activity occurring in January than in May. 

To learn more about crime prevention, Lt. Robert Koziak—the department's Public Information Officer—recommends residents pick up informational materials from the headquarters. To prevent harassment, the department's materials recommend individuals to seek mediation through official channels, like The Westchester Mediation Center of Cluster. The Center's offices are located at 20 S Broadway, room 501, in Yonkers, and can be reached by calling (914) 963-6500. The town's informational materials also address domestic violence issues and traffic safety facts.

The Village of Larchmont

The data used for the Village of Larchmont study includes approximately 60 incidents—again, non-criminal and minor incidents have been excluded.

Unlike Mamaroneck, Larchmont's criminal activity was overwhelmingly traffic-related. Thirty-one percent of incidents were Vehicle & Traffic Law arrests; several out-of-town drivers were pulled over for driving infractions and consequently arrested for operating a vehicle with a suspended license or registration.

Second to Vehicle & Traffic Law arrests are vehicle scofflaws—cars that are illegally parked for an extended period of time. These vehicles were impounded, and the owners were issued fines ranging from $200  to .

Burglaries represented 8 percent of the crimes in Larchmont, which includes an equal number of home and business burglaries. The attempted burglary of a home under construction resulted in one arrest.

There was a notable difference in crime frequency between certain months, particularly February (27 percent of crime) and March (14 percent of crime).

The Village of Larchmont had one case of armed robbery in the month of April. Read more about it here.

Cross analysis

In total, the Village of Mamaroneck (population 18,752, according to the 2000 census) housed the most crime, with the Village of Larchmont (population 6,485) next and the unincorporated area of the Town of Mamaroneck (population 11,141) last. Larceny was common in both the Village and Town of Mamaroneck, but infrequent in the Village of Larchmont.

Per capita, however, the Village of Larchmont housed the most crime, followed by the Village and Town of Mamaroneck.

In average, February and April were the busiest months, followed by January, March and May.

Additional findings

-In total, two vehicles were stolen and two recovered in the Village of Mamaroneck since January. A vehicle stolen in New Rochelle was recovered in the Town of Mamaroneck.

-Harassment, which mostly involved harassing phone calls or text messages, made up 13 percent of the Town of Mamaroneck's crime.

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Want us to look further into a certain statistic or occurrence? Leave a comment and let us know. And keep checking back for updates and advice from the police departments.

Editor's Note: The "other" category on the graphs indicates crimes that were committed infrequently, like stalking or exposure of a person.

Mamaroneck statistics are based on previous Patch blotter reports.  Larchmont statistics are based on blotters issued by the Larchmont Police Department. These are, therefore, estimated, not exact, representations of crime.