Data shows ‘significant increase’ in acts of violent crime in Idaho Falls

Two shooting deaths in January. Several drugs arrests. An assault on a police officer. It would appear Idaho Falls police are dealing with more violent crime, and a new report on crime in the city proves it.

The 2016 Annual Report on Crime lays out a snapshot of violence in Idaho Falls. Using data from Idaho State Police and the FBI, the city got a look at the good, the bad and the ugly of violence in the city. Crime is becoming more violent.

“It is spread out quite a bit,” police Chief Mark McBride said. “We try and look at pockets where crimes are occurring and usually it is all over the map.”

According to the 31-page report, there were 148 violent crimes in 2011. The numbers dropped between 2012 and 2014, but 2015 saw a “significant increase” with 168 violent crimes reported in Idaho Falls.

“We have typically been down the last four or five years, 9 percent and then down 1/2 a percent, up 1/2 a percent, but this last year we were up just a little bit,” McBride said.

A number of factors are believed to play a role in the increase. McBride says it starts with the number of calls officers handle.

“With everybody having a cell phone, things get called in these last four or five years almost immediately whereas before, people wouldn’t call or they would have to go find a phone,” the chief said. “People are more willing to call and report their neighbors.”

The Annual Report on Crime found between 2011 and 2015 the number of calls for services Idaho Falls officers responded to increased by more than 500.

A number of those calls were domestic violence incidents.

“Family, friends, and residents getting into arguments and it is resulting in violence,” McBride said.

Rape cases in 2015 had a 21 percent solve rate, but this low number can be attributed to many different things.

“Sometimes it doesn’t meet the standard for an arrest or prosecution- is really what it amounts to. Most of the rapes we have in this community the offender are known, or the alleged offender is known. So it’s a matter of either recanting the story and not wanting to prosecute is a lot of what it is,” said McBride.

Drug offenses were the most solved crime in Idaho Falls at almost 93 percent.

“Most of those are based on traffic stops, and things like that, where they have the offender right there in the vehicle. The ones that are not cleared would be the ones where there are on-going cases: where they’ll be arrested at a later date or they’ve turned into an informant,” McBride said.

At the surface level, the numbers in the report may seem startling, and while the chief says violent crime has increased in the city, he says you have to consider how the state classified “violent crimes.” McBride says something as simple as making a threat to harm another person is classified as violent in the report.

“Making a threat with an intent to cause bodily harm is an assault,” McBride said. “The actual act is a battery, but the crime stats report them all as assaults or aggravated assaults.”

Idaho Falls is not the only community seeing a spike in violence. Bingham County saw a jump in violence during 2015 as well. According to Idaho State Police numbers, 66 violent crimes were reported in 2015. That’s up from 32 in 2014 and 51 in 2013.

The city of Pocatello, on the other hand, has seen reports of violent crimes decrease. In 2015, officers responded to 60 violent crime calls. That’s down more than 50 percent from the prior year.

Back in Idaho Falls, McBride says compared to other communities the safe size, the city is safe and is not seeing the amount of crime elsewhere, and he’s working to keep it that way.

“We continue to look at the statistics. We analyze those on a regular basis to make sure we are getting the staffing on the streets to make sure we have the resources to respond to these things,” McBride said.

The report also found good news from drivers in Idaho Falls. The number of traffic citations issued is down by near 6,000 over the past five years. McBride says that is because the number of officers focused on traffic enforcement was cut from six to three.

If you’d like to see the specific crime numbers for your community, you can check out the Idaho State Police Crime Database by clicking here.

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