Both violent crime
and property crime were down in the Town of Chesterton in 2016, Police Chief
Dave Cincoski is reporting.
Calls for service
were also down last year--by nearly 10 percent--but that decline is actually
a reflection of the CPD’s shorthandedness: fewer officers on the street mean
fewer traffic stops and other self-initiated investigations.
Begin with the
Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs), which the CPD submits to the FBI on a monthly
basis. There are two categories: UCR Part I, for violent crimes; and UCR
Part II, for property crimes. Both categories show overall--and not
insignificant--year-over-year declines in criminal activity.
UCR Part I:
* Assaults: 57
reported (90 in 2015), a decrease of 37 percent.
* Rapes: five
reported (seven).
* Murders: zero
(one).
* Robberies: two
(one).
* Total UCR Part I
crimes: 64 (99), an overall decrease of 35 percent.
UCR Part II:
* Arsons: zero
(zero in 2015).
* Burglaries: 19
reported (30), a decrease of 37 percent.
* Thefts: 147
reported (209), a decrease of 30 percent.
* Motor vehicle
thefts: 10 reported (16), a decrease of 38 percent.
* Total UCR Part II
crimes: 176 (255), an overall decrease of 31 percent.
Filed Cases/
Criminal Charges
The CPD filed a
total of 113 cases in 2016 (188 in 2015), a sizable year-over-year drop of
40 percent.
However, those 113
cases led to a substantial year-over-year increase in the total number of
criminal charges pursued by the CPD in 2016:
* Adult felony
charges (including burglary, sexual misconduct, sexual battery, rape, child
molestation, and auto theft): 49 (21 in 2015), an increase of 133 percent.
* Juvenile felony
charges (including intimidation and sexual battery): 11 (four).
* Adult misdemeanor
charges: 27 (five).
* Juvenile
misdemeanor charges: 31 (30).
Calls for Service
Total calls for
service, on the other hand, dropped by 9 percent last year, to 12,355 from
13,518 in 2015. That’s 1,163 fewer calls in 2016 or an average of three
fewer a day.
Calls for service,
however, include not simply citizens’ calls to 911--complaints and reports
which officers are obligated respond to--but all of the officers’
self-initiated, unobligated activities, such as traffic stops, those
activities which officers perform “to fill vacant or quiet times between
calls.”
Or as Cincoski puts
it in his report, “Officers take it upon themselves to do exactly what their
oath, training, and jobs require them to do: conduct traffic stops, enforce
local ordinances, state, and federal laws, and perform community services.”
In fact, the
underlying reason for 2016’s decline in calls for service was the CPD’s
shorthandedness. For the entirety of the year, one officer was on unpaid
administrative leave and two others spent a large portion of the year on
medical leave due to work-related injuries.
Cincoski estimates
that, had all three officers been available for duty all year, calls for
service in 2016 would actually have increased by 737 calls--that is, by two
a day--or roughly 4 percent over 2015’s 13,518 calls. And that hypothetical
total of 14,255 would have been the second highest number of calls for
service in the CPD’s history.
Calls for service
in 2016 included the following:
* Traffic stops:
3,103 (4,763 in 2015), down 35 percent.
* Property-damage
crashes: 373 (418), down 11 percent.
* Personal-injury
crashes: 35 (33), up 6 percent.
* Fatal crashes:
one (one).
* Runaways: 15
(19), down 21 percent.
* Shoplifting: 13
(six), up 54 percent.
* Vehicle
repossessions: two (30), down 94 percent.
* Overdoses: 14
(10), up 30 percent.
Quality of Life
2016
Qualify of life, as
measured very roughly by several different categories of call, was a mixed
bag last year:
* Hit-and-run
crashes: 74 (74 in 2015).
* Animal
complaints: 92 (147), down 37 percent.
* Disturbances: 300
(312), up 4 percent.
* Indecent
exposure: zero (three).
* Hunting
complaints: one (two).
* Peddler
complaints: seven (seven).
* Train complaints:
zero (eight).
* Vandalism: 55
(85), down 35 percent.
Vigilance 2016
Citizens appeared
either to be less vigilant last year or more confident in their security, at
least according to the numbers:
* Suspicious
circumstances, persons, or vehicles: 1,098 (1,236), down 11 percent.
* Driving
complaints: 161 (229), down 30 percent.
* Requests for
extra patrols: 152 (322), down 53 percent.
CPD Snap Shots 2016
* Longevity: the
average CPD sworn officer had 13.5 years of experience; the average
detective, 17.7 years; the average patrol officer, 10.6 years.
* Patrol officers
are divided into four crews: two day crews (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and two night
crews (6 p.m. to 6 a.m.). Each patrol officers works 12 hours per shift.
When fully staffed, each day crew is staffed by three officers; each night
crew, by four.
* Officers logged a
total of 274,109 duty miles, with a daily average of 751 miles. Total fuel
usage for the year was 23,921 gallons; average daily usage, 66 gallons.