An article on Baltimore County crime statistics in yesterday's editions had incorrect figures on 1993 national clearance rates, the most recent available, in several categories of violent crime. Nationally, arrests cleared 53 percent of rape cases, 56 percent of aggravated assaults and 24 percent of robberies. The county police clearance rates last year exceeded the national rates in all violent crime categories.
The Sun regrets the error.
Violent crime in Baltimore County declined by 3.5 percent last year, but overall crime increased by 3 percent -- largely as a result of a continuing rise in auto thefts.
Police said 6,256 vehicle thefts were reported in the county last year, or about 17 a day. Models favored by the thieves, according to the police, were Honda Accord, Acura Legend, Dodge Shadow and Jeep Cherokee.
In the categories of violent crime, homicides dropped from 35 cases in 1993 to 31 cases last year, the number of reported rapes remained the same at 281, robberies fell from 2,307 to 2,165 and aggravated assaults declined from 4,827 to 4,711. Total violent crimes dropped from 7,450 in 1993 to 7,188 last year, police said.
By contrast, burglaries declined to the lowest number since 1980. Police said the 7,233 burglaries reported last year was a decline of 8.2 percent from the 1993 caseload.
In other "property" crimes, thefts increased by 5.3 percent and arson by 17.8 percent -- the latter attributed to fires in vacant Essex apartments and Owings Mills' shed fires.
Auto thefts amounted to a 15 percent increase over 1993. According to police statistics, 82.5 percent of the vehicles stolen in Baltimore County were recovered.
The increase in auto thefts slowed somewhat in the last quarter of 1994, and police credited work by a joint city-county Auto Theft Task Force created in July to deal with the problem. The task force arrested 106 people on auto-theft charges and recovered 89 vehicles, police said.
An expanded auto theft task force, the Regional Auto Theft Team (RATT), was created in January. In January, RATT accounted for 22 arrests and the recovery of 52 vehicles.
Police noted that their clearance rates in most categories of violent crime -- cases in which an arrest was made -- were better than the 1993 national averages in urban and suburban areas, the latest available.
The county had a clearance rate of 83.9 percent for homicide, compared to a national average of 65 percent, according to a county spokesman; 71.2 percent for rape against 56 percent nationally; and 82.7 percent for aggravated assault against 24 percent nationally. However, their clearance rate for robbery of 36.1 percent was below the national average of 53 percent.