Did you know? Crime numbers rose in these categories during 2023 in Cape Girardeau

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Cape Girardeau Police Department released its 2023 annual report to the City Council on June 17.

According to a Southeast Missourian article, chief Wes Blair pointed out multiple takeaways from the review for the council. He said while robberies and arsons doubled, the robbery number in 2022 was considered “incredibly low". For more context, see the previous story at https://www.semissourian.com/story/3044482.html.

The following crimes were up from 2022:

* Robbery, from 9 to 22

* Arson, from 7 to 14

* Assault, from 447 to 577

* Kidnapping, from 8 to 14

* Theft, 825 to 855

* Motor vehicle theft, from 99 to 105

* Sex offenses, from 43 to 57

* Receiving stolen property, from 16 to 33

* Weapons violations, from 193 to 226

* Curfew/loitering/vagrancy, from 10 to 15

* Disorderly conduct, from 70 to 71

* Family offenses, from 32 to 91

* Liquor law violations, from 13 to 26

* Trespassing, from 157 to 211

This list consists of crimes that went up from 2022 to 2023. The numbers for several crimes also went down. The Southeast Missourian will publish a separate list of crime numbers that decreased in the city.

For all crimes, the number rose from 3,337 to 3,915 from 2022 to 2023.

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Kinda wish the SEMissourian would pick up what they used to do wayback, with a scorecard published weekly, monthly, or some more-frequent interval than the apparent current annual basis, comparing key or major event totals year-to-date against the counts of those same events last year at that time. Perhaps there was a 3rd column of YTD 3 or 5 years ago as well?

First, in hopes of keeping a larger audience attention on trends in city crime rates, especially those who haven't yet or recently 'fresh-on-the-mind' been affected by a criminal act, and second, in hopes of improved public responses towards, 'if you see something, say something'.

Towards a former mentor's advice - if ya ain't tracking it, ya gots little hopes of managing it.

-- Posted by fxpwt on Tue, Jun 25, 2024, at 2:35 PM
Just like the Missourian to focus on the negative first. Why not discuss the positives also. Everything is not always negative. How does this compare to other area cities? How does it compare nationally?

-- Posted by 66Indian on Tue, Jun 25, 2024, at 3:05 PM
66Indian

That rather sounds like hiding under a rock to me. The media in St Louis has been hiding under a rock for decades. Look at where it got them.

-- Posted by Wilbur Right on Tue, Jun 25, 2024, at 6:11 PM
The report mentions weapons violations but unless murder falls under that category why would that not be included ?

-- Posted by lilmissouriboy on Wed, Jun 26, 2024, at 10:54 AM

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