LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) — Crime is decreasing in the city of Lafayette, the total number of reported crimes is under the 3,000 mark for the first time since 2010.
2018 was one for the books for the city, it's an initiative Mayor Tony Roswarski has been working on since he took office in 2004.
"We're starting to see a significant difference in our crime statistics. The uniform crime reporting part one crimes that we have to send to the FBI, numbers in 2018 are lower, lower than they were in 2004," said Roswarski.
The types of crimes the city is required to report to the FBI include both violent crimes like assaults and homicides, and property crimes like arson and burglaries.
Roswarski said in part, lowering the statistics came from either re-vamping or creating divisions focused around each of those areas.
"The community outreach department did 419 public presentations last year, the street crimes unit made over 1,000 arrests so when you make arrests of that magnitude, you start to drive those crime numbers down."
Chief Patrick Flannelly said the public is one of the department's most valuable resources.
"We're really in the information business and what we do or what we can do, depends on the quality of information that comes into us."
Flannelly said LPD takes an extremely high volume of calls, last year the department took more than 100,000.
"Meaning over 100,000 calls where officers took some sort of action on," said Flannelly.
Flannelly said what begins with information from the public, ends in good old-fashioned police work.
"The work that they do everyday, sometimes it's unsung work but it's important work."
Chief Flannelly and the mayor also shared some steps they're taking to advance crime prevention even further in the future.
They recently created the Analysis Resource Center or ARC, which will help them monitor body camera footage and other video feeds around the city in real time.
LPD plans to give News 18 a tour of it.
