The Arizona Republic reports this a.m. that kidnappings were down in the city last year—slightly:

Phoenix police anticipated a drop in kidnapping reports in 2009 compared with the previous year, though with 302 filed through November, the numbers haven’t decreased significantly.

2008’s total of 359 earned Phoenix the nickname “kidnapping capital” of the U.S.

The story, irritatingly, doesn’t answer or drops a couple of tangential issues readers would like to know the answers to.

One, the LA Times last year reported on the Phoenix kidnapping problem—basically one a day—and finished it with this disturbing sentence: “Police estimate twice that number go unreported.”

That would be about a thousand of these incidents occurring each year. That’s a mind-blowing figure when you consider that they are all taking place in a limited part of the valley. They aren’t happening at the Biltmore; that means that life in the less-swanky parts of town is correspondingly dangerous.

Two, the story doesn’t discuss the kidnapping rates in the rest of the valley or in Maricopa County as a whole. As I read it, it carefully makes clear the figures are for the city only. There’s no reason to think the kidnappings stop at the city’s edge. Based on crude population figures, we could expect at least double that number are occur in the county as a whole.

And here’s the depressing prognosis:

Phoenix Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement investigators say they have dismantled dozens of small gangs involved in kidnappings and home invasions, which led to a small drop in the overall numbers.

“Dozens” of gangs dismantled … and the rate has gone down less than 20 percent.