The number of violent crimes in Austin is up by roughly 3 percent over 2016 figures, according to year-to-date calculations from Austin police through July.

Interim Police Chief Brian Manley outlined the latest data at a city Public Safety Commission meeting on Monday night.

The Uniform Crime Report, a standardized compilation of national crime data by the FBI, defines violent crime as homicides, sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults.

Online police records show officers have handled 2,601 violent crimes by July’s end, including 16 homicides, 489 sexual assaults, 565 robberies and 1,531 aggravated assaults.

That marks an increase of 76 incidents over the 2,525 violent crimes reported over the same period a year ago.

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By the end of July in 2016, when authorities marked an 11 percent increase in the number of violent crimes — the first significant increase in almost a decade — police handled a total of 21 homicides, 453 sexual assaults, 595 robberies and 1,456 aggravated assaults.

American-Statesman Staff

The violent crime rate for all of 2016 was 435 crimes for every 100,000 people in Austin. That annual rate had been even higher in 2012 — 447 violent crimes per 100,000 people — but it has been fluctuating at about 400 from 2013 through 2015.

Figures for 2017 provided by Austin police don’t yet account for population growth, so a breakdown of the per capita rate was unavailable.

Manley said aggravated assaults and robberies have been the main areas where police are seeing continued increases, though robberies are down by roughly 5 percent so far from last year.

Robberies in the first seven months of 2017 have included nine bank robberies and 11 "series" of robberies, which account for 75 separate cases.

"These are individuals that are committing series, not just an individual robbery, but they’re following the same pattern, either choosing the same type of victim, the same type of establishment (or) the same (method)," Manley said.

All nine bank robberies have been cleared by arrests, and suspects have been identified or arrested in nine of the 11 series of robberies.

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While aggravated assaults are about 5 percent higher, assaults involving family violence have steadily decreased since 2013.

Police recorded a rate of 128 aggravated assaults involving family violence for every 100,000 people in Austin in 2013. The annual rate slipped to 125 in 2014, then 122 in 2015 and to 117 in 2016, even as the violent crime rate spiked that year.

"I think (that) is the result of a lot of good work that the department has done over the past couple of years since we created the CRASH team," Manley said. "This is a group that does follow-up on family violence offenses to make sure that the offender is not in violation of a protective order that may have been issued to him or her, (and that) they have not returned to a home that is protected or to a victim that is protected."

Manley said many of the robberies and aggravated assaults that are contributing to the increase in violent crime happened in public, and one of the best ways to prevent that type of crime is with a visible police presence.

Making that presence known was harder with the department’s 144 vacancies as of June, but recent police academy graduates have significantly reduced that number. Two more classes of cadets are expected to complete their training by the year’s end, filling police ranks close to 100 percent.

"The fact that our vacancies are significantly lower this year than last year has helped bring down the crime rate," Manley said. "Additionally, we continue to focus our efforts on data-driven policing."

That focus allows police to focus on crime hot spots that arise across the city as needed.

"Instead of being solely focused on narcotics enforcement or prostitution enforcement, they are also focusing on these other crimes as we see upticks in those areas," he said.