Cops keep up with population growth

Crime reports issued by the State of Idaho show that Elmore County and Mountain Home law enforcement managed to stay even with population growth over the last year, with the number of crimes reported staying essentially the same as the year before, and a slight increase in the number of arrests made.

"Mountain Home is still the safest place in Idaho to live," said Police Chief Tom Berry.

The city police clearance rate for crimes reported, which was actually down 2 percent, was a solid 39.2 percent, up from 33.3 percent the year before. But Barry says that change is statistically insignificant.

"Every year, it's going to vary three or four percent. We base our performance on where we were when I took over as police chief. At that time we were clearing only 19 percent of our cases."

The improvement over the last decade, he said, has been due to a number of factors.

"First, we're getting the public involved. People know we don't think there's anything too small to report, and people are real quick to call us."

In addition, he said, noting the low number of cases typically attributed to juveniles, "I think we've probably got the best bunch of kids in the state, and the parents are doing a good job. Kids will be kids, but we don't have the problems other towns have, and the kids here have helped us a lot in solving crimes" committed by their peers.

Second, Barry said, was keeping officers longer. A committment by the city council to offer decent wages and benefits has helped Barry keep officers on the force, instead of training them and having them move on as they did in the past. "That means they know the community and they know the people better," Barry said, "and that helps a lot."

In addition, the citizen volunteers of the COPS (Citizens On Patrol) program, have helped a great deal, he said. By helping with traffic control, making passes through neighborhoods, and providing nightly business checks, it has freed his officers up to be able to respond to calls.

At the same time, he said, "I'm a little anxious about the future.

"We're trying to stay ahead of the (growth) curve," and be pro-active, rather than reactive, working to avoid problems other area communities are facing, such as gangs.

"Council has OK'd a new patrol officer for me this year, and we'll try and get one each year for the next three years," he said.

He said he hoped to expand his department's anti-crime and safety programs as a result.

Two areas in the crime reports concern Barry. Assault cases, both aggravated and simple, were up over last year, from 140 to 169 cases reported. He said 80 percent of those cases involved drugs or alcohol, and of all the drugs on the streets right now, the one that concerns him most is methamphetamine.

"Meth right now is easier to buy than pot. It's very prevalent and its such a destructive drug, there's so many detrimental effects to a person's personality.

"The problem is, when it manifests itself here, we don't have any in-patient treatment facilities" to deal with it, he said. "We can't just warehouse the problem, we have to solve it."

The city had fewer drug busts than in recent years, but Barry said that's a product of going after dealers more than users. "We're working much larger cases right now."

Overall, for the city Barry said, the five-year trend in cases is "about the same," as it has been in the past. "Overall, there hasn't really been anything big" during 2004, "but then that's all relative. If it happened to you in 2004, it was big. That's something I always remind my officers. For every victim, if it happens to them that crime is the most important thing in their lives at that time."

Traffic issues actually are the other major concern of Barry. "We're growing. We're getting a lot more traffic and we've got 30 more miles of street to patrol.

"Most people don't speed on purpose, they just don't think about it," which is why he's considering getting several more of the automated machines to display a person's speed as they approach it. "Those machines are worth three officers in slowing people down. Most people, when they realize they're speeding, they slow down."

Improved patrols in the downtown area and around the schools are also an area he'd like to make areas of interest in the future.

And finally, there was a 10 percent increase in burglaries and larcenies over the year before (440 over 400). Most of those crimes, he said, are "crimes of opportunity. We don't get very many people breaking a car window to steal a stereo, or busting down a door to burglarize a home. It's more a matter of people leaving their doors unlocked and their windows open, and somebody with a little larceny in their heart walks by, sees and opportunity, and grabs it.

"Just basic safety precautions, like locking your doors, will prevent a lot of those crimes."

At the county level, the total number of crimes reported also held steady, rising 4.3 percent, roughly the same rate as the population growth.

But unlike Barry, Sheriff Rick Layher had some serious concerns with the numbers reported by the state. The state statistics indicated, for example, that the county had 54 burglary cases reported, but only three cleared, and there were 118 larcenies reported, but only seven cleared.

Although the numbers reported by the state were significant increases from the previous year, Layher disputed them.

"We actually had less burglaries than the year before," he said, suggesting there actually were less than a dozen in the county, and the larcenies "can range from anything from petty theft to big things. We had a lot of petty theft, but most of those are usually civil problems."

In terms of residential burglaries, most, he said, occurred in the Glenns Ferry area, where the sheriff's department provides law enforcement services since the city does not have a police force. In the rural areas, he said, "those cases are pretty rare."

Furthermore, he said, "I'm pretty sure we've cleared more than three" burglary cases. In fact, overall, he said, "I'd say our clearance rate was a lot higher" than the 28.3 percent reported by the state, altlhough he doesn't keep his own statistics on those figures, in part because "a lot of times it may get reported as one thing, pretty serious, and then it winds up being something else, a lot less serious."

Like Barry, the biggest concern he and his officers are seeing are increases in meth use, which tends to lead to more crimes to pay for the drug and more violence because of the drug's effects, and the rise in aggravated assaults, especially in bars.

More importantly, he and his officers said,