NEWS

Sheriff focused on recent crime trends

Patrick O'Neill
poneill@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

ZANESVILLE – Assault, burglary and theft offenses decreased last year while robbery and drug offenses were up, crime statisticss from the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office show.

The numbers tell countless stories depending on one’s focus. Take crime reports, for example: 2014 continued a three-year uptick in reported crime. Arrests have fallen since 2011, but citations have increased by a third. Totals for most crimes have remained fairly constant since 2010, although some, such as assault and burglary, have decreased by as much as 30 percent.

For Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz, reviewing long-term crime trends is ineffective. Instead, he focuses on localized outbreaks of crime on a week-by-week basis. That’s not to say the office isn’t proactive; deputies review call data in an attempt to spot trends, he said.

“What happens in the first half of the year really doesn’t affect the second half,” Lutz said. “We review the calls for service. If we see a pattern developing somewhere, we’ll do extra patrols there. ... Recently, we had a business broken into four times. We finally did some things and caught them.”

Lutz said statistics can be skewed “however you want,” and that relying on them for departmental changes is futile. Drugs seem to be the exception to that rule. As drug abuse has increased, Lutz has mandated traffic stops to increase interaction with the community. Drug-related arrests nearly doubled last year.

“More traffic stops have culminated in more drug arrests, more stolen property arrests,” Lutz said. “We want our people having interactions with drivers to slow them down. There’s been a huge increase in traffic stops. We’ve really changed the philosophy so that we’re not being totally reactive.”

Maintaining an open line of communication with village police chiefs has been paramount to the sheriff’s office success, Lutz said. He meets with police chiefs bimonthly to exchange information on local crime and plan resource distribution.

Communicating with the public through groups such as the Muskingum County Crime Stoppers also is an asset, Lutz said.

“Don Jones (of Crime Stoppers) and other citizens have called in to give us tips,” he said. “Some of those have resulted in investigations and arrests. We’re constantly looking at problem areas. Input helps.”

Lutz said an argument could be made that last year’s crime stats, particularly the early months, are a reflection of the low temperatures that kept criminals indoors. Then again, low temperatures are generally accompanied by increased domestic violence, which wasn’t true of 2014.

“I don’t know what to attribute it to. I’m not sure there’s any rhyme or reason to (the statistics,)” he said. “I still consider drugs one of our huge problems. We have people that get high on drugs, then go out and commit crime. We have people that commit crimes so they can go out and buy drugs.”

poneill@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com

740-450-6753

Twitter: @PatrickZTR

2014 crime stats

Offense

2012

2013

2014

Assault

202

215

189

Burglary

349

296

269

Domestic violence

317

301

262

Drugs

70

47

84

Rape/sexual assault

52

76

56

Robbery

12

4

12

Theft

950

853

817

Vandalism

167

163

179

Source: Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office