By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A long-time former prosecutor believes the city of St. Joseph is turning the corner on crime.
Dwight Scroggins served as Buchanan County Prosecutor for 28 years before retiring. Scroggins praises the current city council for concentrating on crime, stating the number one problem facing St. Joseph the past few years has been the number of patrol cars on the streets.
“We should be running, if you follow the policing model that I think is still in place, we should be running at least nine units all the time and six overlap units at high-intensity times,” Scroggins tells host Barry Birr during a call to the KFEQ Hotline. “And for the last two or three years, we’re running four or five units on the street.”
Scroggins says the half-cent law enforcement sales tax will make a real difference in the staff shortage at the St. Joseph Police Department.
“It’s going to take a while,” Scroggins says. “People need to understand that, because it took 10 years to get to where we were. It’s going to take three or four years before you get anywhere near full staffing again.”
In November of 2022, St. Joseph voters gave overwhelming approval to a half-cent law enforcement sales tax. The tax is expected to generate $5.5 million annually, enough to finance an agreement reached between the City of St. Joseph and the local Fraternal Order of Police. The additional revenue has allowed the city to raise starting police officer pay to $49,000 a year. It also provides enough to fund three percent annual pay raises.
City officials say the extra money is needed not just to retain veteran officers on the St. Joseph Police Department force, but attract new officers to fill approximately 20 vacancies. St. Joseph is authorized for 138 commissioned officers, but rarely has had that many on staff.
St. Joseph City Councilmember Kenton Randolph believes reducing crime and increasing beautification is the key to growing the city population.
“When I campaigned, I think some of our core responsibilities are to help reduce crime and beautification and if we can get those two things under control then I think we (will) have better success to encourage more people to come to St. Joseph, move to St. Joseph,” Randolph tells Birr during his appearance on the Hotline.
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