Crime remains steady in Fairfield

FAIRFIELD - Statistics compiled by the Fairfield Police Department show that crime has remained steady during the past decade.

Fairfield Police Chief David Thomas presented data on 2019 crime to the Fairfield City Council Monday, Feb. 24. The document contained data on a variety of crimes dating back to 2009, crimes such as assault, burglary, vandalism and others.

For those past 11 years - during which the police have consistent data - 2019 ranks as the sixth highest for total number of crimes reported at 799.

'It was a very average year,” Thomas said. 'Crime was down a little bit, but not by much.”

The police field more than 10,000 calls for service every year, and 2019 was no exception with 10,573 service calls. Fairfield officers made 377 arrests, down from 433 in 2018 and below the 11-year average of 514.

Thomas said that he goofed up last year and reported the wrong crime statistics to the city council. The statistics he gave the council made it look like crime had nose-dived. For example, burglaries had been right around 100 per year, and then Thomas reported in 2018 that they had fallen to just 39. He said he realized later his mistake, which was to rely on the number of residents who called in a burglary (39 in 2018) versus the number of burglary investigations initiated by officers (103 in 2018), which is how the crime stats had been reported in prior years.

One of the few crimes that were higher than normal was theft. More thefts were reported in 2019 than any other year in the data set, but only just barely, with 253 reported last year, breaking the previous record of 252 from 2014. The 11-year average for thefts is 230.

Thomas said the general public sometimes calls in a 'burglary” when they really mean a 'theft.” The difference between the two is that a burglary is the crime of theft plus trespassing. In other words, the perpetrator is taking an item that doesn't belong to them from a place they don't have a right to be.

Another distinction the public may not fully grasp is that between robbery and burglary or theft. A robbery is basically an assault plus a theft. Robbery was not a kind of crime included in the data set, but assaults were, and they were below average at 39 in 2019, with the average being 51 per year.

The data set shows a couple of interesting trends. One of those is that animal complaints have fallen substantially in the past decade, from the mid 500s to just 352 in 2019. Why? Thomas suspects it's related to the fact that the police no longer chase loose dogs. The department announced that policy change about five years ago, and Thomas thinks that, over time, the public has learned not to call the cops when they see a dog without a leash.

The other stat of note is the sharp decline in traffic stops, down from 2,637 in 2010 to just 1,576 in 2019. Traffic citations are about half what they were a decade ago when they were around 900 per year. Thomas said that has to do with being short-staffed and having to put the department's limited resources into more pressing matters than traffic violations. In fact, Thomas said the department will have five new officers this year, two who are at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy now and three who will go in April. That means it won't be until those three finish in August that the department will be back up to its full 14-officer staff.

'We barely have enough officers to cover the street,” Thomas said.

Fairfield Police Lt. Julie Kinsella added that the department still is in the midst of a major investigation into a series of business break-ins since last summer. Earlier this month, police arrested two adult males and a juvenile for breaking into seven Fairfield businesses and one in Keosauqua.

'Big cases like these business burglaries are very time consuming, so we can't spend as much time on traffic stops,” Kinsella said. She added that there is reasonable suspicion that those arrested were committing similar burglaries in neighboring counties such as Van Buren, Davis, Wapello and possibly Lucas.

One category of service call is 'suspicious activity,” and that is more than double what it was 10 years ago, jumping from about 200 incidents to 422 in 2019. Thomas said he's not sure why the number rose so much, but said it could just be that residents are more vigilant about calling the police nowadays.

'We live in a small town, and neighbors take care of each other,” he said. '[The police] would rather people call when they see something suspicious than to not call. We're glad to see that number up, because it means the community is reaching out and identifying suspicious activity.”