On July 10, 2023, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released its annual report detailing the crime statistics for the ninety-five counties of Tennessee. Upon receipt of the information, District Attorney General Jason Lawson released these crime statistics to each county, including a comparison of these crime statistics to the prior year.
Smith County saw reductions in the number of robberies, domestic violence cases, sex crimes, aggravated assaults, vehicle thefts, and fraud cases. Smith county saw increases in drug crimes and DUIs.
“Overall, I am pleased with the statistics from this year. Improvement was made in key areas,” said Lawson.
Lawson also cautioned about the interpretation of certain statistics.
“We do have to factor in the apprehension rate. For crimes like aggravated assault there is a very high detection and apprehension rate due to medical treatment. The same is not true in crimes like drugs and DUI, which are more covert in nature. Law enforcement does not detect and apprehend one hundred percent of drug and DUI offenders. So higher numbers in these areas could reflect that crime actually increased, or it could reflect that law enforcement detected and apprehended more drug and DUI offenders last year then we did the year before,” said Lawson.
The most disturbing trend Lawson noted was that fraud crime cases remained constant. Fraud crime saw 27 cases in 2021 to 26 cases in 2022.
“The fraud numbers remain way too high,” stated Lawson. “This crime is particularly difficult to apprehend and prosecute because many of the persons committing these crimes are not based in the United States, which makes solving the crime and prosecuting the individuals extremely difficult.”
Lawson said that the key to avoiding and reducing this crime is for victims to engage in protecting themselves. “People should not trust any unsolicited contact, whether by telephone or email or text. If people want to verify that a situation is real, they should get a telephone number from a completely independent source and make the call themselves to verify the legitimacy. Scammers are after money, gift cards, or personal information. And never trust a telephone number or website link provided by the person who contacted them first.”
Still, Lawson has hope. “I believe that one of the great improvements that we will see in the future of law enforcement will be technological advancements that will create a greater ability to track fraudulent transactions and solicitations back to their source. I still believe that there will need to be greater international cooperation in this area to be effective in preventing future fraud, but solving the cases themselves will be an important first step.”
“It is a credit to our law enforcement agencies that our numbers remain so low,” said Lawson, “While we wish that the numbers were zero in every area, anytime you have this many people living together, some are going to choose to break the law. That is why it is important for us to consider these numbers and trends each year to evaluate the areas where we are making progress and find those areas where there is still work to do. In the end, it is all about increasing public safety.”
