Call total up, burglary down

The COVID-19 pandemic has not had a huge impact on the number of calls received by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department but has shown a significant decrease in burglary calls and an increase in non-violent domestic calls.

According to Sheriff Craig Doolittle, from March 1 to November of 2019 they had 7,769 calls compared to 7,979 for the same period this year.

While the calls have increased by 200, Doolittle said they have been increasing every year and believes this to be fairly normal and not a huge increase.

Taking a closer look at the calls, there were 58 domestic (violent) calls in the same time period for 2019 and a slight increase to 62 in 2020.

The numbers for non-violent domestic calls had a larger increase this year from 37 to 52.

Information provided by Doolittle showed theft calls in the 2019 time period were 120 in 2019 with a slight decrease to 114 in 2020.

The biggest area of change during the COVID-19 time period was with burglary calls that dropped from 36 in 2019 to 14 this year.