From the Office of the Sheriff Sheriff Dennis L. Dotson

For Immediate Release

NEWS RELEASE

Date: Feb 05, 2009

2009 Crime Statistics

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office has released information for their past year's enforcement efforts in Lincoln County. In 2009, Sheriff's Deputies responded to 17,173 calls for service, which resulted in 1,167 arrests. The calls for service include incidents reported by citizens and self-initiated contacts such as traffic stops, business and residential checks, citizen assistance calls, warrant services, and civil service.

There were 1,572 criminal charges. 556 were felonies, 779 were misdemeanors, and 237 "other" charges were issued, which include violations such as Minor in Possession of Alcohol/Tobacco, Possession of Less Than One Ounce of Marijuana, animal offenses, fish and game, and marine law violations. Additionally, Sheriff's Deputies arrested a total of 121 DUII drivers and issued 987 traffic citations.

The following is a breakdown of the criminal charges that were issued: 161 crimes against person(s), 210 property crimes, and 1,201 were crimes against society. Examples of societal crimes include all drug, weapons, liquor, DUII, animal, trespass, littering, curfew, runaway/protective custody (juvenile), traffic, fish and game, marine, and some sex crime laws.

The Sheriff's Office patrol division in 2009 was comprised of fifteen Patrol Deputies who serviced the vast majority of the calls for service. Each Deputy responded to an average of 1,145 calls for service.

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office strategic plan, located on their website at (www.lincolncountysheriff.net/strategic_plan2009.pdf), identifies a goal of each deputy responding to a maximum of 800 calls for service per year. Lieutenant Dave Carey, the Sheriff's Office Patrol Commander, reports that this figure is based on a deputy's ability to properly investigate complaints and crimes including the follow-up that is often associated with each call.

"Our citizens expect there to be enough deputies patrolling their communities to not only keep them safe, but to have adequate time to focus on investigations," stated Lt. Carey. "Naturally the more calls a deputy receives, the less time he/she has to effectively investigate," stated Lt. Carey.

Sheriff Dennis Dotson stated, "We know that some additional patrol deputies would be more effective in responding to our citizens in a timely manner." "We are proud of our deputies for many reasons." "One reason is that while the number of patrol deputies has remained constant for two decades, their workload has significantly increased placing greater demands on these people and yet our citizens are routinely telling us that our deputies provide excellent customer service," stated Sheriff Dotson.

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