Report: County's crime, arrests up in 2020
A grafic from Idaho State Police's 2020 crime report shows a spike in arrests for the month of May in Bonner County. "Group A" offenses include more serious crimes such as theft, assault, homicide, battery, and drug/narcotic crimes. "Group A" does not include DUI's.
(Grafic Courtesy – IDAHO STATE POLICE)
BONNER COUNTY – Crime is going up in Bonner County, according to the Idaho State Police’s Uniform Crime Report for 2020.
The report, which compares data from 2019 to 2020, showed an overall 2.6% increase in crime in Bonner County. Arrests across the county are up 16.8%, according to data in the report.
A significant increase in drug seizures emerged from the statistics. In 2020, law enforcement seized eight times more methamphetamine and cocaine, seven times more marijuana, and twice as much heroin.
Bonner County’s most common type of crime is drug and narcotic-related crimes with 641 incidents, a 33% increase. Narcotics-related incidents were the prevailing crime in all age groups with the exception of minors between the ages of 11 and 15.
The second most common type of crime is larceny, which is theft of personal property, with 343 incidents, a 12% decrease from 2019. The third most common crime is assault, with 297 incidents, a 4.1% decrease.
Motor vehicle theft declined by 29%, the steepest fall of any category with 38 cases in 2020 compared to 54 in 2019. Fraud and burglary cases also declined by 25% and 22% respectively, seeing 48 fraud cases, and 145 burglary cases compared to 58 fraud cases, and 188 burglary cases in 2019.
According to data in the report, certain crimes showed a large increase percentage-wise, even though the number of actual cases were few.
The crimes experiencing the greatest percentage is a three-way tie between homicide, kidnapping and embezzlement.
Homicide and embezzlement cases respectively had two crimes apiece in 2020, when compared to their singular instances in 2019.
Last year there were four kidnappings, compared to 2019’s two kidnappings.
Other notable crime statistics include weapons offenses with 26 cases last year, up 30%.
Sex crime cases were up 54.1% with 61 cases. And destruction, up 15.9% with 152 cases.
Robbery and arson cases remain stationary according to statistics, with a singular case of robbery, and two arson cases.
There were no reported crimes of pornography, prostitution, extortion, gambling, bribery, human trafficking, or animal cruelty. A good sign, considering extortion, human trafficking, and animal cruelty experienced the largest percent increase in the state as a whole.
To find Idaho crime statistics dating back to 1995, web search “Idaho State Police 2020 Crime Report,” and select the link “‘Crime in Idaho’ report” to find the webpage with access to the information.