By Christopher Williams,Staff Writer

AUBURN – The number of major crimes committed here last year dropped, but thefts were up, largely the work of shoplifters.

The influx of new retailers in western Auburn has spawned a spike of arrests for theft and larceny, said acting Police Chief Phillip Crowell Jr.

Many of the larger department stores and box stores have hired full-time security workers whose updated technology has boosted the number of thieves nabbed for shoplifting. At JC Penney alone, the number of shoplifters security apprehended tripled last year, Crowell said.

Gasoline drive-offs also helped drive up the number of thefts reported last year, he said. Police have been working with gas station owners to better position security cameras to capture on video the license plates of thieves.

Lewiston police said they witnessed a rise in the number of drive-offs as well. But, unlike in Auburn, the occurrences of theft and larceny in Lewiston declined by 78 incidents or 7 percent. In Auburn, the same category of crimes went up about 22 percent.

The Twin Cities saw a slight reduction in some major crime categories, while the number of rapes, robberies and arsons in both cities was on the rise.

The actual numbers of crimes in each of these categories are so low that they don’t mark a trend, top cops in both cities said.

Arson in Auburn jumped from one in 2004 to four cases in 2005. Two of those were blamed on children younger than 14, Crowell said. The number of rapes climbed from two in 2004 to three in 2005.

Although the number of aggravated assaults in Auburn doubled from four in 2004 to eight in 2005, that number is far lower than the 36 aggravated assaults reported in 2001. That’s because there are fewer bars now in Auburn, Crowell said.

“The makeup of the community has changed a great deal,” he said.

The number of adult drug abuse violations shot up from 36 in 2004 to 59 in 2005, Crowell said. Most were for marijuana possession, in both years, he said. Other illicit drug use is about the same as the year before.

A slight increase in the number of domestic violence assaults might be explained by more aggressive enforcement of protection orders and bail conditions on suspects awaiting trial, Crowell said.

In Auburn, officers formed domestic abuse teams five years ago. That meant they tracked people charged with domestic crimes as well as victims of those crimes. They check periodically on them, making sure one-time offenders don’t repeat and one-time victims aren’t assaulted again.

“Our officers do an excellent job of being visible,” Crowell said. “That is a big deterrent, but we also rely heavily on the community,”

He plans to urge city dwellers to start neighborhood crime watch groups. That way, would-be criminals will be discouraged from committing crimes in the first place, he said.

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