The Charles County Sheriff's Office is proud to announce the recent release of the State of Maryland Uniform Crime Report indicates crime in Charles County decreased by 6.1 percent in 2004.
The UCR is an annual state report that tracks major crimes - including murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, breaking and entering, larceny theft and motor vehicle theft - and categorizes them by county. The numbers include crimes investigated by all law enforcement agencies within each county, including local and state police and county Sheriff's offices.
"The reduction in crime reflects the diligence of Charles County law enforcement, the cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and active crime prevention efforts by citizens," said Charles County Sheriff Frederick E. Davis. "It is an especially significant decrease considering our population increased by more than 3 percent."
Charles County's crime rate decreased in 2003 by 1.5 percent after increases in 2002 and 2001 by 3.9 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. Population has continued to increase; The population grew by 1.5 percent in 2001 and 2002 and by 4.8 percent in 2003.
The 2004 UCR statistics are broken down by category:
* Murders increased from four to five
* Rapes decreased from 38 to 32
* Robberies increased from 152 to 159
* Aggravated assaults decreased from 579 to 540
* Breaking and entering increased from 709 to 778
* Larceny Theft decreased from 3,036 to 2,903
* Motor Vehicle Theft decreased from 585 by 524
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* The Charles County Sheriff's Office participates in a number of crime prevention programs that supplement the preventative patrols and efforts of patrol officers. Some of the crime prevention programs that include citizens are Citizens on Patrol, Neighborhood Watch, Meet the Challenge and National Night Out. Additionally, crime prevention and community policing officers host numerous crime prevention talks to community groups and schools throughout the year.
* The Sheriff's Office also makes efforts to encourage citizens to report crime, as well as suspicious activity. Officers would rather respond to a situation that checks okay rather than not get the call that could prevent a crime from occurring.
* "Our crime prevention efforts get a great response from our community and that's important because we have to work together to be effective in the fight against crime," said Sheriff Davis. "We clearly have a strong partnership with the citizens we serve and that partnership is critical in our law enforcement efforts."