In its commitment to public safety and transparency, the Rapid City Police Department is making public its crime statistics for 2017. This report will be used by the RCPD as a by-the-numbers analytical review that will help guide the agency’s operations moving forward into 2018.
The report is available to the public on the RCPD’s website at this link: http://bit.ly/2DM4nvn
While reading this year’s report, it should be noted that the RCPD has changed the way it classifies non-criminal calls-for-service in 2017 (examples of these calls-for-service include ride-alongs, phone messages, media calls, etc.). These changes will result in a more accurate understanding of crime data moving forward. These changes also mean that analysis of call-for-service data will not be entirely comparable to previous years. This does not affect information extrapolated from cases or arrests, only from calls-for-service.
Some noteworthy take-aways from the report include:
· A 33% increase in motor vehicle theft from the prior year. Many of these were attributed to owners leaving their vehicles unattended and unsecured, or even running.
· Drug arrests increased by 8%, and DUI arrests saw a 16% increase from the year prior.
· Robberies and thefts declined by 14% and 5% respectively.
· Crimes against persons, and crimes against property both increased by 8% compared to 2016.
· The average Rapid City police officer responded to at least 1,423 calls-for-service in 2017. This does not take into account multiple officers responding to the same call, so the real number is actually much higher.
· Homicides and arson saw a dramatic increase when compared to 2016. It should be noted that these numbers were at a five-year low for 2016.
“It’s become clear that accurate data is critical to making sure we have the right resources in the right place,” says RCPD Chief of Police Karl Jegeris. “The RCPD bases its operations on the concept of sector policing. We know that different areas of our community have different law enforcement needs, and we’ve leveraged our Crime Analysis Unit in order to more accurately identify these needs. We are dedicated to eliminating crime in Rapid City, and will continue to do so in a proactive manner to protect the safety of our citizens.”
