ASHEVILLE — Large parts of Buncombe County have seen a 15% drop in crime from 2021-2022, continuing a three-year downward trend, according to the State Bureau of Investigation's recently released data.
Every year, the N.C. SBI releases crime data for the state, individual county sheriff's offices and municipal police stations, including a "crime index," which shows the total number of offenses from that year for eight different crimes — murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson.
SBI also calculates the percent change in the combined total number of these crimes committed as compared to the previous year.
Before the 15% drop in 2022, overall crime in the county also decreased by 9% in 2021 and 2% in 2020, after increasing by 27% in 2019, according to annual crime summaries for the state released by SBI. Compared to a decade ago, crime has dropped by 25% from 2,129 incidents in 2013 to 1,585 in 2022.
The area surveyed covers parts of the county under the responsibility of Sheriff Quentin Miller. It does not include areas policed by municipal law enforcement agencies, which would encompass the city of Asheville, patrolled by the Asheville Police Department. However, according to sheriff's spokesperson Aaron Sarver, sheriff's deputies sometimes make arrests within the city, which would be included in the statistics.
“Thank you to all of our deputies, detectives and detention officers, as a result of their hard work we are seeing a reduction in crime for the third consecutive year,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said a news release.
Sarver said the sheriff's office has started a targeted approach that focuses on arresting those involved in high-level crime and "skilled, persistent" offenders who are "committing a significant amount of crime."
Sheriff's crime numbers and new enforcement strategies
The news release said there has been a “new enforcement strategy” under Miller, who has served as sheriff since 2018. This strategy includes focusing on “arresting individuals who are doing the most harm and are responsible for organizing criminal theft rings.”
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The biggest drop in crime for the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office came from larceny, down about 25% from 1,001 crimes in 2021 to 751 in 2022. Burglary was one of two crimes in the county that increased between 2021 and 2022, from 429 crimes to 490, according to the SBI. Arson also increased slightly from 17 crimes in 2021 to 22 in 2022.
Sheriff’s office officials also cited the Medication Assisted Treatment Drug Treatment Program at the Buncombe County Detention Facility and the Sheriff’s Real Time Intelligence Center as contributing factors to the reduction in crime.
MAT, which is a partnership between Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness and the detention center, employs support specialists and uses medication to help people with an opioid dependency while they are incarcerated and for one year after their release, according to Sunrise Community's website. The program has helped reduce recidivism ― the tendency for a convicted criminal to reoffend ― by 19%, according to the release.
Regarding the sheriff’s office's use of an expansive real-time camera network powered by Fusus, the release said the surveillance cameras are “allowing for a quicker response time to certain crimes” and “aiding and improving our ability to identify suspects and suspect vehicles.”
More real time intelligence:Buncombe County Sheriff gets real-time Fusus bodycams, dashcams: Who can access?
Asheville Police Department's crime numbers
The Asheville Police Department saw a 1% decrease in crime when taken as a whole, according to the N.C. SBI's annual summary, although SBI's summary statistics report lists the decrease as 0.6%. However, violent crime in the city increased in 2022, according to the SBI.
Violent crime within APD’s jurisdiction, which consists of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault on the index, increased about 23% from 714 crimes in 2021 to 880 in 2022. Other than rape, each of these crimes increased from the previous year, pushing violent crime numbers to a "historic high in 2022," according to APR Deputy Chief Mike Lamb.
APD charged individuals in 29.3% of violent crimes committed in 2022, according to SBI data.
"What really has driven our numbers for all three years is our aggravated assaults. We saw in 2022 just an unprecedented number of assaults,” Lamb told the Citizen Times, pointing out how in order to be an aggravated assault, someone’s injuries have to be bad enough to be hospitalized and the assault has to involve some sort of weapon.
New data presented by APD at the Oct. 10 City Council meeting showed city wide violent crime in 2023 through Oct. 1 is 18% lower than it was through Oct. 1 of 2022. However, violent crime this year through Oct. 1 is still 8% higher than it was in 2021.
More from City Council:Asheville City Council OKs downtown bike lanes amid heated discussion
Buncombe County and Asheville homicide numbers
In 2022, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office had four homicides reported and investigated, down from seven homicides in 2021. Asheville had 12 homicides in 2022, up from 10 homicides in 2021. So far this year, two homicides are being investigated by the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office and five homicides are being investigated by the Asheville Police Department.
Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. News tips? Email Ryley at rober@gannett.com. Please support local, daily journalism with asubscriptionto the Citizen Times.
