Crime statistics are about the same across Garfield County - Enid News & Eagle

Garfield County Sheriff Jerry Niles said statistics for 2016 showed crime rates remained “relatively about the same” over the previous year.

“For us, it’s relatively about the same,” he said. “For larcenies, the difference between 2015 and 2016 is one. For burglaries, the difference between 2015 and 2016 is three.”

The sheriff said the most notable figure between the two years is the amount of narcotics seized by deputies in 2016.

“The biggest we’ve seen an increase in, as far as 2016 over 2015, we had an increase in the amount of narcotics that we seized, as far as weights and paraphernalia,” he said. “The other trends we’ve seen were in our burglaries, a decrease in residential burglaries but a little bit of an increase in non-residential burglaries.”

Niles attributed the increase in narcotics seizes to decreases in other crimes freeing up deputies to proactively patrol.

“With the reduction in some of our crimes, especially our K-9 patrols, we’re able to go back to the primary mission,” he said.

“On the streets, we did not see an increase in assault and batteries. We had 10 more than the year before, about six of those come from the jail,” the sheriff said. “Our vandalism numbers were up in 2016, and again, part of that was injury to public building. We file on inmates who damage the jail.”

Niles said sex crimes were all down from 2015, as were stolen property crimes. He said there was a increase in stolen vehicles.

“Our DUI arrests were down last year, our public drunk arrests remained about the same,” Niles said. “Liquor law violations, which also includes compliance checks, we had an increase of over 30 percent. In 2015, we had 64 and in 2016 had 97.”

The sheriff said he was pleased with the statistics.

“I feel really comfortable with the numbers, especially when I compare us with other relatively same- sized counties,” he said. “Last year, in Garfield County our crimes per 1,000 population was 15.81. In Garvin County it was 22.64.”

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