By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph Police say that while some sectors were up last year, overall crime was down.
Interim Police Chief Dave Hart says the reasons crime numbers were down last year are multi-faceted.
"There's been a decrease in reporting, there's been a decrease in contacts with us," Hart tells reporters at a news conference. "We have fewer officers on the street, when our officers are out doing self-initiated activity, we're generating crime numbers because we're doing things, when we have fewer officers, we're doing less self-initiated activity."
Hart says there has also been huge changes in society, such as people working from home which makes crime go down with everyone at home compared to out on the streets.
The number of car thefts in St. Joseph dropped between 2020 and 2021, but last year motor vehicle thefts were back up again.
Hart says many of the thefts that occurred were crimes of opportunity.
"You know you go by and check a door, doors unlocked, you get in, oh look there's keys," Hart explains. "Do we have some your standard car theft where they're broken into, yes, but a vast majority of these are crimes of opportunity."
Hart says it's the responsibility of the community to make it harder for these crimes of opportunity to occur by locking their vehicles and making it more difficult for thieves
Hart says it's hard to tell if this is an encouraging sign of what's to come in 2023, even with the passage of a police sales tax in November.
Hart says while it is a wait and see of what's to come this year, it's also important to manage the community’s expectations.
"This is not a snap your fingers and the police departments back to fully staffed, this is going to be a process, to hire and train a new person is almost a year, so it's going to be a slow process of getting us back," Hart says. "And, nobody really knows what the future is going to bring, as far as coming out of this post pandemic era, the changes that we've seen across all aspects of society."
Hart says the department strives to hire the best people that they can and will not take any shortcuts just to ensure that they fill the departments staffing needs.