National Night Out: Neighborhoods Rally Against Crime Tonight

UPDATE (Tuesday): for a list of neighborhoods participating in the National Night Out event.

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Between 6:30 and 9 p.m. Tuesday, residents are invited to turn on their porch lights and mingle with neighbors and law enforcement officers as part of National Night Out. Already, more than 100 communities in Virginia, Fairfax City included, are registered to participate.

See coverage of .

The idea behind the event is that if residents get to know each other better, they will be more likely to work together to help keep their neighborhoods safe.

This nationwide event began in the 1970s as a way to get people out of their homes and meet each other with the common purpose of making communities safer by raising crime prevention awareness.

Before you head out to celebrate safe communities, take a look at this glimpse of crime statistics within the city limits.

Most recent crime numbers are bolded.

• Murder: 2009 - 0, 2010 - 0, 2011 - 0
• Rape: 2009 - 2, 2010 - 3, 2011 - 4
• Robbery: 2009 - 14, 2010 - 10, 2011 - 12
• Aggravated Assault: 2009 - 11, 2010 - 13, 2011 - 16
• Burglary: 2009 - 33, 2010 - 26, 2011 - 38
• Larceny: 2009 - 588, 2010 - 507, 2011 - 515
• Motor Vehicle Theft: 2009 - 22, 2010 - 30, 2011 - 13
• Vandalism: 2009 - 227, 2010 - 175, 2011 - 213
• Hate Crime: 2009 - 5, 2010 - 1, 2011 - 2
• Hate Incident: 2009 - 1, 2010 - 0, 2011 - 0
• Trespassing: 2009 - 42, 2010 - 29, 2011 - 28

Other crime facts:

• The number of police service calls remained in the late 13,000s the last three years.
• Officers made more arrests (7,995), wrote more speeding tickers (3,564), wrote more red light tickets (596) and filed more criminal charges (1,256) in 2011 than 2009 or 2010.

More information on National Night Out is available at www.natw.org/nno.

-- Patch’s Adam Swart and Joan Dentler contributed to this report.