Crime rate dips slightly

Despite an increase in population, crime in Mountain Home was actually down slightly -- 0.7 percent -- during 2002 than it was the previous year, according to statistics compiled by the Mounain Home Police Department.

Police Chief Tom Berry said several factors were responsible for holding the line on crime.

"I attribute a lot of it to support of the community," he said. "Their help, their calls, the Neighborhood Watch programs, all have helped us a great deal.

"The public is more and more cooperative, every year," Berry said, attributing much of that to the community policing programs that put officers in contact with citizens on a regular basis. "They know if they call, we'll try and do something."

In addition, he said, "we're finally getting officers staying here, so with more experienced officers, they know the town better and know who the bad guys are." He said salary increases have helped him retain officers, who often were lured away in the past. Berry noted that the actual number of patrol officers hasn't changed since 1978, and that economic concerns have prevented an expansion of that force.

Berry has 21 sworn officers on staff, 12 of whom work patrol. The rest are detectives involved in follow-up work on crime reports, drug investigators, and administrative staff.

Berry was particularly pleased with the clearance rate. Of the 1,212 crimes reported in the city last year, police were able to solve and make arrests in 539 of them, a 44.5 percent clearance rate, up from 41.7 percent the previous year, and significantly higher than the 19 percent clearance rate in 1994, the year Berry became police chief.

"That's a very good clearance rate, and we're proud of it," Berry said.

The largest single category of crimes reported were larcenies, which ranged from shoplifting to thefts from motor vehicles. A total of 365 were reported, with 106 of the crimes cleared.

"Those things can be easily eliminated if people would just lock their car doors and their houses," Berry said. "It isn't like it was 100 years ago," he noted.

In a related crime, motor vehicle thefts rose from 19 to 30 during the 2002 reporting period. "With the interstate here, we've got a lot of people just traveling through, and some of them are criminals. If people would just not leave their keys in their cars, we could cut down on this considerably," Berry said.

There was a slight decrease in drug and narcotics violations, but Berry said that doesn't mean the problem is going away. Besides the ubiquitous marijuana, Berry said the main concerns are the increasing use of methamphetamine and the appearance last year of significant increases in heroin use.

"By February of this year alone we've busted two meth labs," Berry said. "It's getting easier and easier to do." He also said that some date-rape drugs, such as GHB, have been reported in the area.

The drug problem also has resulted in an increase in arrests for firearms violations. "As we see an increase in drug use, we're also finding more and more guns" in the possession of drug dealers.

Assaults also were reported more frequently in 2002 with 32 aggravated assault reports filed and 254 simple assaults filed.

"Our assaults continue to go up. We're seeing an increase in violent crimes," Berry said, many related to domestic battery incidents.

In almost every case, Berry said, drugs or alcohol were a factor. "Those are often underlying factors in almost every violent crime we see. If we could get rid of those factors, our violent crime rate would drop off considerably." He said alcohol was a contributing factor "in a significant number" of the incidents.

Burglaries dropped in 2002, with 54 reported, down from 60 the previous year. "A small group of individuals can run rampant in this town," Berry said, affecting those statistics. "For example, we had three guys last year who hit seven businesses in one night."

Surprisingly, vandalism cases were down, from 235 reports in 2001 to 211 reports in 2002. A total of 47 of those cases were solved.

"A lot of people think our vandalism is up, because of some very high profile cases we had last year, but overall, there was a slight decrease," Berry said. He noted that the high profile cases tended to involve young adults, not juveniles. "These weren't some spur of the moment stupid thing, these cases were from people who were old enough to know the difference between right and wrong."

Overall, Berry said he was pleased with the crime report. "Most major incidents, we made arrests, and I think we've had a positive effect on the community.

"I still think Mounain Home is the safest place in Idaho to live."