There's a new way to track crime in Ann Arbor. The Ann Arbor Police Department is rolling out its new transparency dashboard, making crime stats available all the way back to 2021.

The data shows a 4% drop in violent crime and a 7% drop in crime overall compared to this time last year. However, parts of Ann Arbor that cover downtown saw crime go up over the past year. Downtown Ann Arbor saw total crime go up about 9% and violent crime increase by 11%.

Ward 1, which includes a large portion of downtown, saw an 8% increase in total crime and an 11% increase in violent crime.

"The times of that are roughly between 12:00-3:00 am on Sunday, which is really an area where we see individuals that are coming from many of the local establishments that are open late in the evening," said Ann Arbor Police Chief Andre Anderson.

Ward 5, which goes as far as S. State Street to S. Wagner Road, had the most reported crimes with 1,423 and also saw an overall decrease in total crimes of 5%. With Ward 5 also covering a decent portion of downtown, I asked why we didn't see a significant jump in crime in that part of town.

"Arrests are not the answer, but creating some prevention strategies to assist is where we think we can work to modify some of the crimes that are being reported," Anderson said.

Anderson says he's hosting quarterly community chats to go through these numbers and talk about the factors that play into them.

"We also might ask them how they can help us address some of the crime trends. What they can do with respect to seeing their beat officers and our community policing efforts. This is a collaborative approach for us," he said.

The Ann Arbor Police Department will release times and dates of upcoming "Chief's Community Chats" on its Facebook page.