Story Published: Jun 12, 2008 at 10:45 PM PST
Story Updated: Nov 20, 2008 at 8:35 PM PST
"There's no more patrols because we haven't hired any more employees since 2004," he said. "It's the deputies being more active. We are getting an increase in calls, as more people move out in the county, of course that increases our call load out there. And then a lot more self-initiated stops and investigations by the individual officers."
Buttrey said Nez Perce County authorities cracked down on each of the four types of crime found in the report.
"The statistics were broke down into four major categories," he said. "Crimes against persons, crimes against property, crimes against society and then what the call the B group which are offenses that are more bad checks, or disorderly conduct, DUI's that sort of thing. And those were the statistics they used to come up with these rates."
Buttrey said the rising arrests don't necessarily mean the amount of crime is also significantly increasing. He said more offenders are being caught.
"I don't see an overall crime increase," he said. "We have a slow steady increase. I think more of it is our officers being more aggressive against crime, more assertive out there."
The report puts Nez Perce County arrests in the top five of Idaho's counties in 2006, and in the top third for 2007.
