Carson City Sheriff's Office 2019 stats: Crime rate in capital city lowest in 25 years

With 2019 now at a close and all of the final reports in for the period all the way through the New Year Eve celebrations, it’s time for a summary look back for everyone to see.

To begin with, after 25 years of providing valued criminal justice data nationwide, the Uniform Crime Reporting platform has hit the end of its reporting criteria life.

Taking its place is our new national platform, National Incident Based Reporting Systems. New to us for 2020, we are shifting the methodologies and collections of crime and criminal information, and will be challenged to make comparisons of our past to the future data collections. That being accepted, it is appropriate to look at our last 25 years with great success.

In 1994, Carson City recorded its first crime occurrence rate of 2,210 Index Crimes (major crime) that first year; in 2019 we witnessed the lowest rate of 830 for the year, a 62 percent decrease. In recent terms, 2019 witnessed a 9 percent drop from calendar year 2018 and a 19 percent drop as compared to calendar year 2017. (Scroll through and click on stats to enlarge.)

For the families who live, work and entertain here, the community wide crime rate in 1994 was recorded at 50.85 major crimes per 1,000 residents for the entire year; in 2018 we saw that rate drop to 17.13 to the population (lowest point recorded in 25 years).

With a 9 percent drop in the 2019 Index Crime rate, we should anticipate that the final Crime Rate percentage for 2019 will likely drop below 16 in the statewide analysis, as expected. For comparison purposes, we look to the rates for our region, all inclusive of Carson City and all the counties that touch our borders. Again, it appears that we will continue to run 3 to 4 points below the inclusive regional average, as well as far below the statewide average. That’s all great news for our community, and directly reflective of the efforts of everyone in this agency, volunteers included.

This past year was equally successful when breaking down groups of crime, commonly categorized as Crimes Against Persons and Crimes Against Property. Both categories fell this year together.

Crimes against persons dropped by 5 percent and most significantly, the community suffered no criminal homicides. Under the group of crimes against property, the drop was more significant with a 10 percent decrease from 2018.

When looking deeper into the property crime arena, we also see that property stolen was valued at almost $1.3 million dollars, which was down 11 percent from 2018 and down 3 percent from 2017. All of this data suggests positive “result oriented” activity. Our indicators were capped off this year with another successful Clearance Rate factor estimated to be approximately 35 percent, a significant comparison to statewide data reflecting normal averages loom in the area of 15-20.

From an internal perspective of the department, this all bodes very well for divisional support to one another in completing our mission, to provide professional public safety services and build mutual trust and respect within our community.

I believe this statement is truly reflective of the sincere efforts given by everyone each and every day. As I’ve said in the past, without comprehensive, concerted, and overlapping efforts by everyone, we could not have achieved the successes that we’ve witnessed. I thank everyone in this department, as well as our community-wide supporters for a great year.

2019 going into 2020 is bringing some shifts of perspectives that have long been a charge of this administration. We have achieved fully staffed “program” responsibilities including our K-9 program, School Resource Officers program, Traffic Enforcement Unit, proactive Specialized Enforcement (at community, region and federal levels), and substantially broken ground to putting forward the strongest Behavioral Health Unit and mental health response in the region.

Capping this, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office still ranks low as compared regionally and statewide to officers per 1,000 residents; doing more with less. This is significant advantage to the residents and businesses in our community that demand transparency and efficiency in governing and the use of tax dollars. Again, kudos to everyone for the hard work, as your efforts allow community leaders to solve other problems as well.

The Executive Administration will be working diligently this year with significant efforts to reduce the likelihood of deaths in the community (including suicides and traffic accidents), diverting persons from Emergency Rooms and Jails whose needs remain elsewhere, acquiring the tools and trainings necessary to keep up with changing criminal and social considerations, and attacking crime at the lowest levels in order to prevent the more serious offenses from taking place.

With the many changes that took place or were initiated in 2019, we must work together intently to see to it that these programs, platforms, and activities continue to compliment one-another. Together, 2020 promises to be another great year of success for health, safety and welfare in the community driven by a department that serves as a cornerstone of cooperation with everyone, internally to one-another and external as well. Over the years, no challenge has proven to be insurmountable for the exemplary professional employees of the Sheriff’s Office, and I thank you all for your energy to accomplish amazing successes.