Friday, July 9, 2010

Cassia sheriff refutes crime rate increase

By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

Randy Kidd

The sheriff of Cassia County in south-central Idaho said Wednesday that crime reporting problems in 2008 led to inaccurate information regarding the crime rate for the county in 2009.

"Our system was down in 2008 and we didn't get all our reporting in," Sheriff Randy Kidd said in an interview.

Kidd was referring to the Idaho State Police annual crime report for 2009, released July 1, which showed a crime rate increase in Cassia County of 138 percent. The information was reported Wednesday in the Idaho Mountain Express in a story about crime rates in the eight counties of ISP Region 4.

Kidd said that because of computer problems in 2008, his office was unable to fully report statistics to ISP for that year. He said accurate information was reported for 2009, but the incomplete data for 2008 led to an inaccurate calculation for 2009 that overstated the crime rate in the county.

By his observations, Kidd said the crime rate didn't likely increase at all in 2009.

"I think it's pretty steady," the sheriff said. "I don't think it really increased or decreased one way or another. It was just a problem with the reporting."

Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com



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