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News
Sheriff's report shows drop in criminal activity : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisSheriff's report shows drop in criminal activity
| Calls for police service, arrests declined from 2011 levels
| by Matt Schury
| 1/3/2013
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Kendall County Sheriff Richard Randall presented his office's 2012 report at the Dec. 18 County Board meeting.
Randall's annual report covers the county's fiscal year from December 2011 to November 2012 and includes the Support Services, Criminal and Corrections Divisions.
Calls for police service were down from last year with deputies responding to 29,946 calls this year compared to 39,151 police calls in 2011.
The report shows arrests were down as well in 2012. Misdemeanor arrests totaled 1,233 this year compared to 1,685 last year.
The report shows warrant arrests were at 889, a slight decrease from the 809 in 2011. Felony arrests were also down, totaling 145 this year, a decrease of about 40 from last year.
Randall said the decrease in criminal activity reflects a national trend.
"I think that's one of the things that every law enforcement agency has experienced, because of the economic situation we all felt that crime would be up significantly and it hasn't," he said. "Obviously we are doing something right but it's a national trend, so this is not just local."
Randall said he doubts the trend will continue and points out that while criminal activities are down, police are still busy dealing with "emotional situations."
He added that officers are responding to more domestic situations and attempted suicides.
"People are distressed and they fight amongst themselves and have disagreements that don't rise to the occasion of being arrested," Randall said. "There are a lot of people who are in stressful situations."
Randall's numbers reflected those stressful economic situations in an increase in sheriff's sales. The report shows just $276,000 in funds taken in from sheriff's sales in 2011 compared to $671,000 this past year.
"That is significantly higher than last year," Randall said. "So our economic situation is not any better."
Randall noted that the funds his office took in from sheriff's sales in 2010 were high as well. He said that many banks had a moratorium on foreclosures in 2011, which ended in 2012 and might have contributed to the large increase of sheriff's sales.
He said it comes back to "people not being able to afford the situation they were put into."
Elsewhere in Randall's report, the Corrections Division also saw a decline in their numbers. Inmates were housed 47,145 days or about 1,600 days fewer than last year.
The reports does show that more inmates were housed from other counties and subsequently the out of county housing billed to other counties increased as well.
In 2012, there were 15,838 inmate stays in the Kendall County Jail from outside counties, compared to 13,127 inmates last year. The sheriff's office billed those other counties $950,280 last year to house those inmates, compared to $749,000 in 2011.
There was also an increase in work release inmates with 1,953 inmates participating in that program, compared to 1,303 last year.
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