Crime on the Rise

Violent and property crimes are on the rise and police are working to make sure it doesn’t get worse. The FBI released crime statistics for the first half of 2012. Although murders and rapes declined from 2011, overall violent crimes like robbery and assaults increased 1.9%. Property crimes like burglary, larceny, or car thefts also went up 1.5 percent.Police tell ABC 17 News they’re always busy going out to things like burglaries, robberies, or shootings. Boone County sheriff’s officials didn’t have numbers for 2012, but they don’t expect much change from 2011. “Property crimes always keep us busy, domestic violence, we’ve seen more financial crimes,” Boone County Sheriff’s Detective Tom O’Sullivan says.Officials say they’re also seeing more things like cyber crimes. They’re trying to stay ahead of the curve by having proactive patrols and stop criminals before they commit a crime.But it’s not just the sheriff’s department trying to stay ahead of the crime, but also the Jefferson City Police Department. We were able to get numbers of certain crimes from them. Crimes like robberies, burglaries, and arson actually decreased from 2011. But cars being stolen, larcenies, and assaults all shot up at least 14-percent. That’s more than any crimes decreased.”We can have impact on some things, but there are other things such as violent crimes that are random and heat of the moment that we can’t predict clearly. We [can’t] predict because we’re not physically there,” Jefferson City Police Captain Doug Shoemakers explains.But cops tell us they have and use many resources to keep crime as low as they can.”We know who they are, we know what cars they drive, we know who their babies’ mommas are, we know where they all live, and we keep an eye on them,” O’Sullivan says.Officials tell us a lot of times crimes like burglaries or robberies happen in sprees. That can sometimes make the numbers look worse than they really are.