Kentucky State Police have released their annual statewide crime report and it had both good news and showed areas that need renewed focus heading into the future.
Overall, it seems serious crime rates dropped in 2022, with Governor Andy Beshear saying there were fewer reports and arrests for homicides, robberies and drug related crimes across the state.
Other decreases include a more than 13% decrease in drug and narcotic offense reports and about a 12% decrease in arrests of that crime as well as a 16% decrease in reports of robberies and a nearly 6% decrease in those arrests. Other categories that had a rate decrease include fraud, human trafficking, pornography and obscene material and prostitution offenses.
The governor says this is great news, but there were unfortunately some categories that saw increases, including animal cruelty offenses.
Kentucky State Police say they intend increase their efforts in protecting children online, with Lt. Mike Bowling of the KSP Electronic Crime Branch saying that most young people have constant access to the internet in some form. He says many of those kids will be hit with some type of explicit messaging or bullying online and the majority of it goes unreported.
KSP has arrested 128 online predators since 2021 and has strived to improve its digital forensic lab to help catch more child predators. KSP is looking to improve 911 services across the state, hoping to fully roll out a cloud-based, computer-aided dispatch system.