So far this year, residential burglaries in the city have topped 1,100 - an increase of 28 percent compared with last year.
Burglary rates for businesses have seen an even sharper increase. While there were just 174 incidents to this point last year, that number has jumped 32 percent to 229.
The city's police chief, Mike Burns, told WMAZ-TV that part of the problem is that officers have been focusing their attention on more violent crimes, and those guilty of property crimes have gotten off with less jail time, and ended up back on the street.
"Every time we meet at CompStat, it's the same story. 'I've locked up seven people this week,' then two weeks later another precinct says well I just locked the same ones up. So it's just very frustrating to the officers," he told the station.
Prior to this year, the city had been seeing decreasing crime rates. The Macon Telegraph reports that after peaking at just under 1,700 burglaries in 2006, officials saw three consecutive years with declining crime.
