Schenectady County had NY's highest crime rate in 2016 - Albany Times Union

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN

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Schenectady County Sheriff Dom Dagostino announces the start up of a new County-wide Drug Unit run by the Sheriff's Department, to address the growing heroin epidemic that is impacting the county during a press conference held Sept. 30, 2015 in Schenectady, N.Y. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union) less

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN

Schenectady County had the state's highest per capita crime rate last year, rising above Niagara, New York and Erie counties.

"In spite of the numbers," Schenectady County Sheriff Dominic Dagostino said Friday, "we are moving in the right direction in terms of the violent crime and the opioid epidemic."

While Schenectady County had 3,038 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2016 — as opposed to the state's average rate of 1,904 — crime there has dropped more than 16 percent in the last five years. Nearly a thousand fewer offenses were reported in 2016 than in 2012.

"But still," Dagostino said, the state data "jumps at you."

The sheriff pointed to the city of Schenectady as the driving force behind the county's No. 1 slot. The urban center accounts for 58 percent of the county's most serious offenses.

"We are a stopping point for the drug trade [from] downstate," Dagostino said, adding that Schenectady, Albany and Rensselaer counties serve as a distribution hub for the rest of upstate New York. The other two counties' crime rates came in as No. 5 and 12, respectively, out of 62 counties statewide.

Saratoga County, which also borders Schenectady, ranked No. 50. Compared to its northern neighbor, Schenectady County is more diverse, less affluent and densely populated.

The county crime rates, published annually by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, were calculated using county population estimates collected by the U.S. Census and the number of crimes police in each county reported to DCJS.

The data is based on index crimes, a designation that encompasses the seven violent and property offenses tracked by the FBI nationwide. The list includes murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

Dagostino said the opioid epidemic "drives the crime" in Schenectady County, including the most serious offenses. Three years ago, he formed a narcotics unit within the sheriff's department and ordered the investigators to be "very aggressive in attacking" the network of drug distribution, he said.

The sheriff also identified persistent gang issues, which city police and county deputies have teamed up to combat, as an accelerant for crime. He said the county's most successful intervention program is One Life To Live, which employs formerly incarcerated people as case managers and violence interrupters.

"They identify people on the cusp or in the middle of violent crime ... and direct them towards services that will keep them from that type of lifestyle," Dagostino said. The program is modeled after Chicago's CeaseFire, which has been replicated across the country, including in Albany.

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