In the near future, federally-mandated changes to the criminal code for reporting crimes will show more crimes happening in Jefferson City.
In a presentation to the Jefferson City Council Public Safety Committee on Thursday, Capt. Eric Wilde said some felonies were changed to misdemeanors and vice versa, so they are going through the reporting system to reflect those changes.
"They are pushing for incident-based reporting," he said. "Right now they have summary reports and incident reports. A summary takes the highest classification of a crime; so if you had a homicide, robbery and a theft, you would only report the homicide. With incident reports you get greater visibility of what happens so all three crimes would be reported."
Over the next three to five years, Wilde said, the federal government wants this system in place in all communities.
"To get grants from the federal government you'll only be able to submit incident-based data," he said. "So you're going to see our crime stats go up. As you report more crimes, you're going to see more crime data."
Wilde said it's not something they're afraid of and they want to keep the public informed so they know why they might see a spike in the number of crimes reported.
On a related note, Police Chief Roger Schroeder told committee members the department's Community Action Team (CAT) was working to deal with recent theft reports in some parts of the city. He said the holiday season often sees a spike in thefts and burglaries, and CAT team members are working with citizens to solve these crimes.