Despite an overall 5 percent crime decrease in Madison, burglaries have significantly increased this last year and have become a top priority for the Madison Police Department, Chief Noble Wray told the city council last week.

After seeing a rise in burglaries in 2007, MPD started the “Blue Net” burglary task force, which specializes in tracking large burglaries and repeated offenses Wray said have been connected to gangs.

“This is the first time that I’ve noticed this, and I’ve worked for the Madison department for 24 years, that there is a serious gang connection,” Wray said, noting in particular Latino and girl gangs that have popped up on Madison’s south west side.

“There’s some things that I’ve come to you with that I think we can do in helping us to deal with this,” Wray said.

While “Blue Net” has been successful in reducing commercial burglaries of businesses and construction sites, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said it lacks focus on residential burglaries.

Verveer said property crimes are common downtown and are disproportionately committed against students. They tend to be more complacent about locking their doors, making these crimes simply “crimes of opportunity,” he added.

“I think many of the downtown burglaries are being carried out by drug addicts looking for a quick fix, and they’re able to prey on students because students have expensive electronic equipment that are easy to fence,” Verveer said.

Wray said violent crime such as homicide, forcible rape and aggravated assault, is down 14.2 percent.

MPD continues to investigate four 2008 homicides, including the homicide of University of Wisconsin junior Brittany Zimmermann.

Wray said he remains optimistic about solving this case and reminded the City Council 87.5 percent of all homicides in Madison between 2003 and 2008 were solved by arrest or identification of a suspect.

One of the strongest types of evidence for identifying suspects is DNA, Wray said, and he asked the council to petition the state to provide funding for DNA testing.

“Consider providing the resources to have DNA test for people that are arrested for serious violent crime,” Wray said. “There hasn’t been a forensic element recently that has done more to free people as strong as DNA.”

Verveer emphasized the need of keeping safety as a priority.

“It’s potentially possible that the killer of a UW undergraduate is still in our community,” he said.

In addition to discussing crime trends, Wray told the City Council how MPD plans to utilize the 30 new positions the council approved in last year’s budget.

According to Wray’s report, 12 new police officers joined the force this June, including an investigator and a new detective. Eighteen more positions are scheduled to start in the coming year.

Of those 18 positions, Wray said MPD would like the City Council to consider having four of them upgraded from officers to higher positions. That decision will be made when the council discusses city budget this November.