As Villa Rica has grown, so too has the crime rate.

In the 1990s, Villa Rica was a small, sleepy town with just a few thousand inhabitants, but as development from Atlanta came west Villa Rica grew to what many estimate is a population of more than 12,000 people today. The city’s crime statistics are evidence of the challenges for law enforcement that growth has brought with it.

Though the city is far from the murder capital of Georgia, it has had three murders in the past three years — two in 2007 and one in 2009 — after going 17 years without one. In fact, violent crimes have increased right alongside most every other crime category.

“We’re seeing more consistency in violent crimes,” said VRPD Capt. Scott Parker, a department veteran. “The numbers have increased with the growth. It doesn’t matter whether it’s day or night, we just get busier and busier.”

Comparing the latest annual crime statistics released by VRPD for 2009 to those since 2003 (the oldest available), a steady increase in overall crime is obvious.

Though the number of thefts have varied since there were 401 recorded in 2003, they peaked in 2006 with 688; the number dropped last year to 524. Burglaries similarly peaked in 2006 with 108, dropping down to 82 in 2009. Conversely, the number of robberies has more than doubled from the five reported in 2003 to 13 in 2009.

The number of rapes reported has held steady and at no time in the last seven years have they broken double digits in a year’s worth of data, peaking with eight in 2007.

The number of DUIs recorded has risen sharply to 78. However, the high point for DUI arrests was 101 in 2008.

The most dramatic increase has been in the area of domestic disputes. The number of domestic calls in Villa Rica has nearly doubled since 2003 when there were 452 reported to an all-time high of 716 in 2009. Likewise, the number of assaults peaked in 2009 with 85 reported.

Parker said many of the crimes in the city’s annual statistics stem from domestic disputes in some way, and police Chief Michael Mansour added that stress due to the economy contributes a lot to the number of domestic disputes and other crimes.

“It’s definitely a trend that’s being seen all over the country,” Mansour said. “It’s widespread, but what I think we’re seeing now in the last year and a half to two years is domestics, assaults and different crimes like that based on the stress that people are under with the economy like it is. People are losing their jobs, stuck at home and they’re not used to being around each other 24 hours a day and they don’t get along as well as they thought they did.”

Parker said the biggest effect on the crime rate in Villa Rica came with the growth. He pointed to similar trends in Douglasville, which grew as fast as Villa Rica during the same period.

“There was just so much growth at one time that has brought in all these other things, the good with the bad,” he said.

Mansour said his department tries to curb the incidents of crime through educational programs it offers to the community and officers try to be more visible by patrolling areas more frequently and participating in community activities. But, he added, it’s hard to control what happens behind closed doors in peoples’ houses.

“It’s just not realistic to believe that police can prevent a domestic incident,” he said.

Parker said domestic disputes often lead to other crimes that are reflected in the city’s overall numbers. Drugs also lead to many crimes that are reflected in the city’s overall numbers.

“Most of our major crimes are drug-related,” Mansour said. “There’s no question about it, that a lot of our assaults, robberies and those types of crimes are drug-related. ”

Though the city’s population has nearly tripled in the last decade, the number of officers has not kept pace, even though there are more officers working now in Villa Rica than in the past. When Parker started in Villa Rica in 1994 there were 15 sworn police officers, including the command staff. Today, there are 36 sworn police officers.

“That’s one of those things that’s just the nature of the beast,” Parker said. “If we grew as fast as we needed to keep crime down, the city couldn’t afford to keep us up because we have to grow with the city instead of in front of it, and in order to keep crime down you have to grow in front of it.”

This dilemma is one reason Mansour said he and his command staff look in every direction for grants and other programs that will allow them to fund new positions without burdening the city’s budget.

“I think we definitely will have to deal with future growth and we will have to try and prevent the number of crimes from increasing because of that growth,” Mansour said.