The latest annual report on crime in Connecticut municipalities reveals that Norwalk’s crime rates in two out of three categories ran counter to the state trends in 2023, according to Police Chief James Walsh.
That statistical divergence is a measure of the progress his department is making in areas including community partnerships, heightened vigilance, and hiring success, Walsh said. His comments came in a wide-ranging interview as he approaches his second year of tenure as police chief.
In Norwalk, “crimes against society” soared 93 percent in 2023, compared to 2022, Walsh said, while municipalities overall reported an average 2.2 percent decrease in these mostly vice-related violations.
And the city’s “crimes against property” decreased 11.8 percent in 2023 over from 2022, compared to an average 11 percent increase across the state.
Chief Walsh attributed Norwalk’s increase in crimes against society to the department’s heightened vigilance through “self-initiated activities.”
“Almost two-thirds of crimes against society in the city of Norwalk are comprised of narcotics and weapons violations, and mostly that is all self-initiated arrests by our Special Services Division, especially the smoke shops and stuff,” Walsh said.
Walsh was interviewed about the state crime report last Thursday. In a press release issued Friday, the department said the city’s 2023 increase in crimes against society was due primarily to arrests made “in response to a dramatic uptick in residents’ complaints and intelligence of illegal sales of marijuana and unlawful THC products from vape and smoke shops.”
[Below: Video of excerpts from the interview with Police Chief James Walsh]
In the third category, crimes against persons, Norwalk reported a five percent decrease in 2023, while the statewide decrease was 3.8 percent.
“So all our (2023) indexes across the board are down, except crimes against society,” Walsh said.
The annual Crime In Connecticut reports, produced by the State Police Crimes Analysis Unit, are based on crime statistics submitted by all of Connecticut’s law enforcement agencies to the FBI through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).
[The latest full report is available at: https://portal.ct.gov/despp/division-of-state-police/crimes-analysis-unit/crimes-analysis-unit/annual-reports/crime-in-connecticut-annual-reports]
The primary statistic in the report for making town-by-town comparisons is the crime rate per 1,000 residents.
For Norwalk in 2023, that was 38.204, based on an estimated population of 91,639.
The prior year, the city had a crime rate of 41.4 per 1,000 residents, Walsh observed. So last year reflected a 7.7 percent decrease in reported crime.
“I would say that’s a substantial improvement,” Walsh said.
Based on population, the closest city in comparison is Danbury, with a crime rate of 35.842 for an estimated 87,327 residents.
“Yes, we can compare to other jurisdictions on a yearly basis,” Walsh said. “But I’m looking at our efforts here within the city. We’re seeing decreases from 2022 and it’s something that’s a positive trend and that we hopefully continue to move in that direction.”
Asked what was behind the city’s overall decrease in crime, Walsh said there was a mix of factors based on different variables that occur in society, including socio-economic reasons, enforcement, attitudes toward crimes, and partnerships between the community and the Police Department.
One activity by the department Walsh pointed to as a possible contributing factor in lessening crime was more aggressive traffic enforcement.
At the end of 2022, Walsh said, officers conducted just under 3,000 car stops. This year, to date, they’ve conducted almost 11,000 car stops.
“We have a lot of pro-activity occurring here … through our traffic unit,” Walsh said. “When there’s a lot officers pulling over people for motor vehicle violations it could deter future crimes. They see an officer pulled to the side of the road with someone pulled over with the lights and the sirens on, so that could act as a deterrent effect.”
Walsh said he receives a report every morning that is distributed to every officer in the department covering all of the previous day’s major crimes in the city.
“We analyze that,” Walsh said, “and continually adjust our efforts in response.”
Friday’s news release from the city included remarks from Mayor Harry Rilling, who stated, “The work our Police Department is doing every day in our community to establish meaningful collaboration and trust between officers and members of the community is successfully reducing crime, and I’m very proud of all the Department’s efforts.”
Managing The Department
Walsh is approaching his second anniversary as chief. He said managing the department during his tenure has always been a team effort, and probably the most important accomplishment of his administration has been recruitment.
After experiencing a serious shortfall in officers in 2019-2020, the department has hired 65 new officers in 2 1/2 years, Walsh said.
As a result, he said, officers have been added to the traffic unit, community policing, and the Special Services Division, there is an increased number of School Resource Officers, and the Patrol Division is fully staffed.
School resource officers are uniformed officers assigned to schools who have additional training to work with administrators and student to create a safer environment.
“There’s a lot of young, new officers, which are contributing, also,” Walsh said. “When you have a young workforce there’s more self-initiated activity. So, we’re trending positive.”
The department has an authorized strength of 183 officers. Walsh said he believes that’s an appropriate size force, but he’s waiting for workforce analysis being prepared by an outside agency to see if that should change.
Walsh said he intends to continue increasing the number of School Resource Officers and wants to expand traffic enforcement.
“Traffic in this city still remains one of the residents’ biggest concerns,” Walsh said.
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