Data shows drop in Twin Falls crime, rise in crime in other areas

SOUTHERN IDAHO (KMVT/KSVT) — As a whole, crime in Idaho saw a downward trend over the last year, as has been reported by many.

However, not all areas saw a decrease in overall crime. While Twin Falls City saw a large drop of nearly 500 incidents, just over a 12% decrease from last year, smaller departments around the area didn’t fair as well.

Kimberly, Filer, and Buhl all saw increases in incidents between 12% and 70%. Most people attribute this to an increase in population, but that may not be the case, necessarily.

Combing through the data over the last five years, every town in Twin Falls County with a police department saw exponential increases in population, but crime rates per 100,000 fluctuated.

The only municipality seeing an overall increase was Filer, with Kimberly staying relatively similar, and Buhl seeing a slight decrease. Twin Falls saw the largest decrease, which begs the question: “What is Twin Falls doing right?”

“There’s so many variables that go into the crime statistics that there’s not one specific thing that we can point to that was a reduction in the crime report,” said Lieutenant Craig Stotts of the Twin Falls Police Department. He says there are positive things happening in the community, which may be a factor.

“I think building that bridge with them and encouraging them to call us when they do have problems or issues. We see that as an added benefit, absolutely,” he said.

Getting out and doing outreach with schools, places of worship, and other groups is allowing them to do this.

“We have officers that are assigned to those groups that are marginalized, such as the refugee community, LGTBQ+ community,” said Stotts.

Going back to the state-wide numbers, Idaho State Police Lieutenant Robert Rausch says Idaho must continue its “strong culture” to keep the downward trend in crime going.

“I think most of it though is that we have a really good culture here in Idaho and that they work well with law enforcement,” he said.

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