By most metrics, crime is falling in Concord from its rise in 2021 and 2022 and is now below or at pre-pandemic levels, according to a 2024 annual report from the Concord Police Department.
Each of the most common crimes are down compared to 2019: theft went down 18%, assaults were down by 1.8% and vandalism shrank 1.6%.
Total arrests in 2024 fell 3.2% from the year before and 8.8% since 2019, and drug arrests have gone down nearly 40% since 2019. Fewer people in Concord were arrested for drug-related crimes last year than in 2020.
In 2021 and 2022, following trends nationwide, crime in Concord was on the rise, as well as concerns about public safety. But in 2024, crime totals fell below where they were in 2019. These decreases come as the city has upped its investments in the department every year and is currently preparing to build a new police station.
When Concord Police asked city leaders in 2022 to add more officers to the force, which they did, the department projected their calls for service would increase from 52,500 to 54,000 the following year.
Yet the total number of calls — any police response is logged as a call for service — were around 49,000 last year and 48,000 in 2023, nearly 6,000 fewer than anticipated.
Unlike crime rates, calls for service measure the full picture of situations police address. Especially as the city looks to boost its housing supply, leaders expect the demand on police to rise and are expected to approve the construction of a new police headquarters in the coming months. Per a report attached to plans for a new police station, the number of police responses is expected by the city to top 82,000 by 2044, a 66% rise over two decades or 2.6% on average each year.
The city’s population has grown more slowly than expected by City Hall. Concord grew by just .2% between 2023 and 2024, according to census data.
Despite decreasing crime, calls for service and more than a dozen vacancies in the department, no one in city government has suggested shrinking the size of the police force. The number of Concord police positions grew by 12 to 90 total sworn officers since 2000, an increase of 21%. Meanwhile, the city’s population grew by 8% over the same period of time, according to U.S. Census data.
In the last two years, city investments in the department have shot up.
Between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, day-to-day operating expenses for Concord Police grew more than 5%, and they have climbed nearly 22% since 2019.
The department’s 14 vacancies have led to increased spending on overtime to cover empty shifts. For the last two years, city police officers have also received $10,000 retention bonuses aimed at stemming turnover. Rising operating expenses are expected to persist: the most recent contracts approved for city police unions include 5% annual raises.
“Retention and recruitment remain a top priority for the department,” police chief Bradley Osgood wrote in a report to the city council. “Retention of our workforce is always a high priority and can be accomplished by staying competitive in the labor market and providing our staff with training, opportunity and the physical resources needed to perform their work. When analyzing the data for the past 35 years the number one reason that sworn officers leave the police department is retirement.”
The city also plans to continue to nurture its growing police social worker program. Concord hired its first police social worker in 2024, among the first in the state to do so, and has since added two more positions to her team.
As crime rates in Concord have risen and fallen, the demographic picture of those facing charges has remained disproportional.
Over the last six years, an average of 10% of people arrested in Concord were Black, which rose from 2019, when it was 8.6%, to 11.2% last year. The city’s overall population is 4% Black.
Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.
