Violent crime down in St. Joseph in 2023
By Jenna Wilson
The St. Joseph Police Department reported a decrease in both violent and property crimes in 2023 during its annual crime press conference Tuesday.
St. Joseph saw an overall decrease in “part one” crimes last year compared to 2022. This includes murder, aggravated assault, robberies, motor vehicle thefts and other serious offenses designated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In 2022, there were 3,365 part one crimes reported, compared to 2,879 reported in 2023, representing a 14% decrease.
“We will remain dedicated to reducing crime and will continue to use these statistics as reference points to deploy our resources efficiently and effectively,” said Paul Luster, St. Joseph police chief. “We’re also remaining focused on each victim and the impact that crime has on the victim, as well as our community.”
Luster credits each law enforcement agency, including the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office, as well as the prosecuting attorney for playing a vital role in the crime reduction over the last year.
Each agency gathers twice a month to discuss active investigations and known offenders, which has helped solve many criminal cases over the year.
While law enforcement is not satisfied with the 295 aggravated assaults that occurred in 2023, they’ve cleared 68% of those cases, showing the significant achievements of the department in just one year.
“To put that in perspective, the national average for clearance of aggravated assault is about 41%,” Luster said. “One homicide is too many in our community. St. Joseph experienced four during 2023. Of those four, we had a clearance rate of 100%. That’s almost 50% higher than the national average. In fact, we personally surpassed the national average in clearance rates for all violent crime categories.”
Since he’s come into the department, Luster said tackling violent crime will continue to be his main priority.
“That’s not to say we’re not going to address other things because we focus on all crimes but there’s always going to be an emphasis on violent offenders in our community because that’s what creates the most danger to our citizens,” he added.
Looking ahead in 2024, Luster said the department still has a crucial amount of work to do to tackle other types of crimes occurring regularly, including domestic violence, shoplifting and fraud.
“This is just the beginning. We’re constantly looking for areas of growth or areas of improvement,” he said. “We look at existing programs and decipher if there’s room for growth in those or if there is something that we’re not doing that we should be doing. A lot of that’s based on community input or input from our department members, but our efforts to create a safer community will continue.”
