By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com
In a four-year span ranging from 2006-2010, the US Census Bureau reported that the percentage of San Benito residents living below the poverty level was at a staggering 33.4 percent, which is nearly double the state average of 16.8. And while the affects of a recovering – albeit slow – economy may be felt elsewhere in the country and even in the state of Texas, there remains little indication of such in the Rio Grande Valley.
According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the unemployment rate has reportedly increased in Cameron County from 6.5 percent over four years ago to 11.2 percent currently. Yet there’s another statistic that, while also alarming, some believe is in direct correlation with the area’s stagnant economic landscape.
On Wednesday, Elizabeth Olvera, records supervisor for the San Benito Police Department, responded to an open records request the San Benito News filed in search of crime statistics from January 1-August 25, 2011 to January 1-August 25, 2012.
Olvera reported in her response that thefts increased from 447 during the aforementioned time last year to 506 this year. There were also over 100 more burglaries committed during the 2012 time span when compared to the year prior; from 289 to 407.
While Olvera stated that there were no major crimes, such as homicides, arson and rapes, reported in the city, a case has long been made that petty crimes may reveal more about a community’s socioeconomic climate.
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3 comments
If we don’t speak up they will run all over us this is our home we can not let this keep on happening we barley make enough to support our families to have some guy on crack come take it away is not far to us as hard working people
I am not surprised over this. With poverty comes the desperate need to steal, because one cannot afford what one needs or demands.
Prehaps comminty police departments should start visiting local universities and high schools looking for law enforment career minded students and organize a volunteer petty crimes division to start detective agency work. You’d be suprised how many crimes they could solve by useing investigative technology and never haveing to come into contact with the criminal element.