Among all the facts and figures presented in the Idaho State Police Crime in Idaho 2023 Report, several statistics stood out . One was that crime decreased significantly in Canyon County, which is among the most populous regions in the state and which continues to grow precipitously.
Following an 11% increase in criminal offenses during 2022, Canyon County saw just over a 13% decrease in criminal offenses and a 1.38% decrease in arrests last year. The county’s Group A crime rate for 2023 — which includes offenses against persons, property and society — was 4,088 per 100,000 residents.
Numbers on the changes in crime rate come from the Idaho State Police’s annual crime report, compiling data from Idaho’s law enforcement agencies to show trends in crime over the past year, as well as trends for the past five years.
The Canyon County Sheriff’s Office did not return requests for comment on the year-over-year change.
The Nampa and Caldwell police departments both weighed in on what they perceived to be the biggest contributing factors to the decreases in crime seen locally over the past year. Both departments highlighted the continued use of the CompStat model, short for Compare Stats, as an integral tool to stay on top of specific offenses and the location of crimes within the community.
In addition to CompStat, both cited new technology and protocols used to bring down crime in their jurisdictions.
NAMPA POLICE DEPARTMENT
The Nampa Police Department saw a 7.72% decrease in total criminal offenses during 2023. A total of 3,293 arrests were made for 6,182 offenses.
Nampa Police Capt. Eric Skoglund pointed to Nampa’s special enforcement team, created around this time last year, as being a factor in the decrease. Skoglund said the focus of the team can be gang-related crimes as well as providing support for larger investigations by helping identify and locate offenders and make arrests.
“Contact investigators, get those interviews happening,” Skoglund said of the enforcement team. “If there’s somebody who’s wanted, they’ll help locate them and arrest them and get them into custody.”
Traffic enforcement has been another major area of focus for the department, with significant investment being made to the Integrated Command Center over the past year.
While the center doesn’t operate 24 hours a day, Skoglund said that staffing has been improving significantly to allow for operation for much of the day. The center leverages license plate reader technology as well as more than 100 cameras to keep track of traffic flow and adjust traffic lights as needed.
Skoglund said that the capabilities of the command center extend beyond traffic and can also be used to bring closure to open investigations, allowing investigators to better identify vehicles and individuals involved with a crime.
“There’s many ways it helps, but when we’re talking about the crime report and crime reduction, they’ve helped with our solvability, ability to close cases out a little bit quicker,” Skoglund said.
Drug violations, one of the few crime categories to rise in the state, remain an ongoing focus for the Nampa Police Department. The Idaho Press previously reported how the Command Center is used to combat drug offenses in the area.
“We’re certainly not seeing any lack of work in the flow of drugs and distribution,” Skoglund said. “Our narcotics units stays very busy.”
Skoglund said that the department’s narcotic unit has been effective in making seizures of large quantities of drugs.
More broadly, the department has been looking to apply pressure and make criminal elements feel a level of apprehension that pushes crime out of a community.
“We recognize that when you apply pressure to criminal activity in our area, it tends to go somewhere else,” Skoglund said.
Skoglund said that while this doesn’t mean that crime will leave the city, it can leave a neighborhood and make individuals who were engaged in crime feel that they can no longer do so without being apprehended.
“We’ve been really proactive and going out and trying to put pressure on individuals who we think are committing crimes in our community,” Skoglund said. “I think that’s reflected in why our crime is down, because of that pressure.”
Skoglund said that the department is looking to expand staffing on its special enforcement team in the coming year. Additional change is expected to come with a shift in focus towards providing resources for members of the community with mental health needs.
“We’re also focusing on more emphasis on mental health, our response to people in crisis and that type of thing,” Skoglund said.
He said that the department will potentially look into bringing in staff members to help with mental health related calls to assist with this area of law enforcement response.
CALDWELL POLICE DEPARTMENT
Among Idaho’s top five largest cities, the Caldwell Police Department saw the largest drop-off in crime from the prior year, with a 28.33% decrease in criminal offenses and a 20.47% decrease in arrests. This decrease comes off a 11.76% increase in Group A crime in the prior year.
Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram, who came on board to lead the department in July 2022, pointed to an increase in the training budget from $67,000 to $270,000.
“We invest in our people and our employees, we get positive results.” Ingram said. “This is no surprise to me.”
Particular attention has been paid to the gang presence in Caldwell, an issue that Ingram said the city has worked to combat through outreach programs directed toward kids who are at risk of becoming engaged with gang activity.
“Show them that we are not their enemy, and they are not our enemy,” Ingram said. “We’re part of them, we’re part of the community and we all need to work together.”
Ingram mentioned Breaking Chains Academy, which provides resources for at-risk youth to earn a GED, as an integral community resource to assist with the ongoing work to combat gang activity.
Ingram has previously said that gang activity has existed in Caldwell for nearly three decades, and reached its peak in the summer months of 2004 and 2005. A number of initiatives had been put in place over the years to curb gang activity, prior to Ingram’s arrival. During an interview last year with the Idaho Press, Ingram said that Caldwell is a safe place to live when asked how it stacks up to his previous stomping grounds.
Additional investments have been made into expanding the technology available to officers and investigators. Ingram pointed to the Flock Safety System, which includes License Plate Recognition systems (LPRs) and gunshot detection monitors to help pinpoint crime.
Ingram said that the Flock system has reduced both officer hours and detective follow-up, allowing the department to be sure that they are going after the right person, as opposed to trying to track down car models or individuals with matching descriptions.
Being more precise about what individuals are being investigated for crime has helped to build public trust, Ingram said.
“Then we’re not impacting the entire community,” Ingram said. “We’re going right after them, and we’re fishing with a hook instead of a net.”
In light of the crime report’s data showing decreases in crime across the state, and Caldwell in particular, Ingram said that he hoped the statistical trend would help change perceptions about Caldwell and Idaho as a whole.
“There’s a lot of people moving in that think that Idaho is changing, and it’s not as safe as it once was,” Ingram said. “There’s a narrative, especially here in Caldwell or in Canyon County, that it’s unsafe. I’ve been working around the clock to really try and change that narrative.”
With a continued decrease in violent crime, Ingram said the department will be looking to address quality of life issues that are more common. Moving forward, the department is looking to better allocate resources for non-emergency responses to allow officers to be stretched less thin and focus on being present and proactive to deter theft, shoplifting and other crime.
“We’re asking for some civilian community safety officer positions that can deal with the minor quality of life issues, which are taking a lot of the time from our police officers right now,” Ingram said.
Ingram said that this could include resolving disputes between tenants and landlords and other “quality-of-life” issues that don’t require an emergency response.
“When you fix the small things, the big things follow suit,” Ingram said.
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