Crime held relatively steady in Lyon County last year, and while some offenses fluctuated substantially percentage-wise, the actual numbers in most cases were close to those in 2007.
Year-end statistics for both 2007 and 2008 were compiled by the Lyon County Sheriff’s office in two areas: Offense reports and reports of calls received by sheriff’s dispatchers.
The offense reports primarily detail the monthly and cumulative numbers of crimes in the comparable years. Those numbers often do not match the call reports because officers may generate their own cases and not all calls result in formal cases or tickets.
The total number of offense reports provided by Undersheriff Richard Old showed a dip of 55, from 1,073 offenses in 2007 to a total of 1,018 in 2008.
The number of calls to the sheriff’s dispatch reflected similar changes, though the numbers were far greater.
Calls to dispatch include not only criminal activity, fatal accidents and more urgent problems, but requests for officers to check the welfare of individuals, deliver emergency messages, investigate suspicious circumstances, take care of litter such as dumped furniture, assist motorists with vehicle problems, resolve neighborhood quarrels, settle parental custody disputes, answer requests to check bars for violations, get cows off the road (172 cases in 2008) and other similar calls that would not appear on offense reports.
The total number of calls to sheriff’s dispatch dropped from 4,206 in 2007 to 3,998 in 2008. Included in the totals are 69 “911 hang up” calls in 2007 and 50 in 2008.
The county again recorded no murders outside the city limits, and burglaries, batteries and criminal damage to property cases generally were down from the previous year, as they were in many of the offense categories.
Old cautioned not to place too much emphasis on the case numbers.
“I didn’t see anything that I thought was way out of line,” he said. “Our problem is that we have so few incidents, such a small jurisdiction for the number of people we serve in the rural areas, we don’t have statistically significant numbers samples.”
He cited as examples the figures from aggravated burglaries — 1 in 2007 and 4 in 2008 — and residential burglaries — 35 in 2007 and 28 in 2008. The percentages appear large, but the numbers are not.
“We don’t have enough to get predictable trends,” he said. “I could pick out six categories on here (on the statistics sheets) and say, ‘Yeah, all six of these are down,’ but that doesn’t tell us much. We don’t have big enough samples to make them statistically significant.”
Animal problems again constituted a substantial number of calls to the sheriff’s office.
“Those are expensive man-hours when you assign a deputy to go chase cows,” Old said. “So, to try and keep costs down, we got the animal control officer position created and implemented, and it’s been a constantly generated calls. …
“He probably takes more calls than any other officer, but he has less follow-up to do. A cow out doesn’t take as much follow-up as a burglary, but it’s still stuff that’s got to be responded to.”
The number of driving under the influence of intoxicants cases was 52 in 2007 and 57 in 2008.
Driver’s license infractions — including restriction violations or having no driver’s license — went from 33 in 2007 to 27 in 2008.
Old expects to see those traffic numbers rise now that staffing is at a fuller level. The department now has 25 commissioned officers, including five who serve at the courthouse and do not go on patrol. There are 12 deputies and three supervisors assigned to patrol, plus two detectives, a canine officer, and a probation enforcement officer, plus three reserve volunteers who help out part-time.
“They are fellows that have been through the academy training, but have full-time jobs elsewhere,” Old said. “They’re usually out and about on Friday night and Saturday night.”
With officers now available, the department will emphasize traffic enforcement, particularly DUIs, driving while licenses are suspended and enforcement of speed limits.
“I always worry about that, because it impacts the accidents,” Old said. “I want to target our speed enforcement to our high-accident rate areas. If I spend three hours writing speeding tickets out on West Highway 50, and if I can cut back on accidents, prevent accidents, I’ve (succeeded).”
During the past three months, the department also has begun logging and tracking patrols made in the small towns and housing areas around the county.
The added charting was in response to the law-enforcement consolidation study.
Officers always had routine patrols in the towns, he said, but the patrols did not generate case numbers and could not be tracked.
Deputies patrol in Admire, Allen, Americus, Bushong, Hartford, Miller, Neosho Rapids, Olpe, Plymouth, Reading, Thorndale and in Country Park and Green Acres mobile home parks.
Officers made a total of 761 town or mobile home park patrols in October, 716 in November and 733 in December.
“Usually they’re 10 minutes, 15 minutes spent patrolling these little communities,” Old said.
Lyon County Crime Statistics
Below is a synopsis of the sheriff’s offense reports from 2007 and 2008:
Offense 2007 2008
Arson 3 6
Attempted suicide 8 15
Battery 52 43
Burglary, home and business 63 68
Burglary, vehicle 12 8
Criminal damage, under $25,000 93 97
CDP, more than $25,000 1 1
Criminal use of financial card 4 3
Drive as habitual offender 1 0
Drug cases 133 152
Driving under the influence 52 57
Driving while license suspended 41 33
Violate license restriction 33 27
Minor in possession 66 36
Murder 0 0
Rape 3 3
Rape/sexual intercourse with child 4 3
Robbery 1 2
Thefts 142 134
Transport open container 31 13
Unattended deaths:
accidental 2 1
natural 7 6
suicide 3 1