Fairfax County (web|news) crime went up 12 percent in the first six months of 2008, fueled mostly by an increase in burglaries and larcenies, police said Tuesday.

However, police pointed out that violent crime dropped nearly 10 percent in the first half of this year, compared with the same period last year. The decline came mostly from a 25 percent reduction in robberies, which drew police attention after such crimes reached an all-time high in 2007.

Of the nearly 9,300 serious crimes committed in Fairfax through June - murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft - more than 7,450, or 80 percent, were larcenies, according to police statistics. The number of larcenies in 2008 was 1,000 more than a year ago. Many of the thefts were of portable GPS devices taken from cars, as well as other small electronics devices such as iPods, cell phones and laptop computers, according to Fairfax Lt. Jennifer Lescallett. "The GPS units continue to be one of the hot commodities," she said.

The increase in robberies had been a serious trend in Fairfax in recent years, reaching a record high of 597 in 2007. So far this year, 218 robberies were reported, down 25 percent from 292 a year ago. Lescallett said police, using crime rate data to track where most robberies occurred, have concentrated their efforts in those places to reduce holdups.

The number of crimes in Fairfax County in 2006 was the lowest recorded by Fairfax police since 1970, when the county's population was about 500,000. More than 1 million people now live in the county.

Fairfax County has made it easier to report crimes, especially through Internet and telephone access, possibly leading to statistical increases, Lescallett said. "We've been doing more marketing in terms of getting people to report crime," she said. "In the last year, we've really been pushing that more."

Although Fairfax County is the most populous jurisdiction in the Washington region, the number of crimes per 100,000 residents ranks lower than in neighboring municipalities. In 2006, the last year for which comparable data are available, Fairfax County had about 1,683 crimes per 100,000 residents. Arlington County had more than 2,200 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2006, Alexandria (web|news) and Montgomery County (web|news) each had more than 2,600, and Prince George's County had more than 5,200.