{"id":6503,"date":"2011-05-20T11:57:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T18:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=6503"},"modified":"2011-05-20T12:06:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T19:06:35","slug":"crime-up-in-lewis-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=6503","title":{"rendered":"Crime up in Lewis County"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHEHALIS – The recently released report on crime in Washington state suggests that while crime is down a bit statewide, it grew by more than 18 percent across Lewis County last year.<\/p>\n

The biggest jump locally was murder, with six occurring in Lewis County during 2010, compared with only two the year before.<\/p>\n

The Lewis County city with the highest crime rate, when numbers are adjusted for population, is Chehalis.<\/p>\n

Last year in Chehalis, there were 103.3 “part one” offenses -serious crimes against people and property – reported for each 1,000 Chehalis residents, according to the report published last month by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.<\/p>\n

The report’s crime index looks at certain offenses, not all, which are selected because they are indicators of the total amount of criminal activity.<\/p>\n

Chehalis Police Chief Glenn Schaffer said 2010 was definitely a “crazy year” with almost double the number of arrests over 2009.<\/p>\n

However, viewing the numbers per capita can be somewhat misleading, Schaffer said.<\/p>\n

“We have I-5, we have the whole Twin City Town center, so you have an influx of people who travel through here or come to work here,” Schaffer said.<\/p>\n

His officers go to Wal-Mart more than 600 times each year for shoplifters, he said.<\/p>\n

Schaffer holds to the idea there’s no easy way to explain why the trends of crime rise and fall.<\/p>\n

When the economy started to decline in 2009, he expected the city’s crime rate would sky rocket, but it didn’t, he said.<\/p>\n

“We got into 2010 and that’s when we saw the spike,” he said.<\/p>\n

Centralia came in second, with a crime rate Police Chief Bob Berg called disturbing<\/a> when he released preliminary numbers\u00a0 in February.<\/p>\n

Also according to the report<\/a>: Most listed crimes increased from 2009 in Lewis County, including burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, aggravated assault and robbery. Only arson and rape were down.<\/p>\n

The most common crimes locally and statewide are larceny (theft) and burglary.<\/p>\n

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported 256 burglaries last year, down slightly from 2009.<\/p>\n

Centralia saw 212 burglaries and Chehalis saw 97, both up by almost half from the year before.<\/p>\n

Morton showed a decrease of the listed crimes of 35 percent from 2009.<\/p>\n

Not all cities and towns passed their numbers along to WASPC last year, among those were Pe Ell and Vader.<\/p>\n

Other data included in the Crime in Washington 2010 Annual Report include the number of employees by agency, assaults on officers, crime clearance rates and more.<\/p>\n

According to the numbers provided, the Chehalis Police Department cleared 333 of their part one crimes last year, which translates to almost 45 percent of those crimes.<\/p>\n

The Centralia Police Department cleared 237 of their part one crimes last year, which is about 19 percent of them.<\/p>\n

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office cleared 142 part one crimes, or about 18 percent of them.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022
\n“Part one” crimes per 1,000 population last year, by agency<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chehalis:\u00a0 103.3<\/strong>, up 27.3%<\/p>\n

Centralia:\u00a0 78.4<\/strong>, up 41.2%<\/p>\n

Morton: 39.1<\/strong>, down 35.3%<\/p>\n

Toledo:\u00a0 28.8<\/strong>, up 100%<\/p>\n

Napavine: 28.6<\/strong>, (no 2009 numbers to compare)<\/p>\n

Winlock:\u00a0 26.3<\/strong>, no change<\/p>\n

Mossyrock:\u00a0 25.9<\/strong>, no change<\/p>\n

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office:\u00a0 17.0<\/strong>, down 1.2%<\/p>\n

Pe Ell:\u00a0 no report<\/p>\n

Vader:\u00a0 no report<\/p>\n

Lewis County total:\u00a0 38.8, up 18.5%<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thurston County total:\u00a0 34.9<\/strong>, up 7.7%<\/p>\n

Cowlitz County total:\u00a0 39.5<\/strong>, down 5.2%<\/p>\n

Grays Harbor County total:\u00a0 39.5<\/strong>, up 10.6%<\/p>\n

Yakima County total:\u00a0 50.4<\/strong>, up 2%<\/p>\n

Washington state overall:\u00a0 39.8, down .3%<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source: Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, Crime in Washington 2010 Annual Report<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter CHEHALIS – The recently released report on crime in Washington state suggests that while crime is down a bit statewide, it grew by more than 18 percent across Lewis County last year. The biggest jump locally was murder, with six occurring in Lewis County during 2010, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-6503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6503"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6507,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}