APD: Alcohol offenses down, calls for sexual assault up in 2014

That change could stem from a decrease in uptown alcohol consumption, fewer police officers being able to patrol on weekends or APD pursuing more serious crimes like sexual assault or burglary — as both saw an uptick in either calls for service or incident reports in 2014.

APD received 18 calls to dispatch for alcohol-related offenses in 2014 — a 75 percent decrease from the 73 alcohol-related calls the year prior. APD hasn’t seen that few calls for alcohol-related offenses since 2007, when there were 16 calls issued for such incidents.

Meanwhile, APD saw a jump in serious crimes.

There were 26 calls into APD's dispatch regarding rape in 2014, putting the department at a 10-year high for such calls.

Additionally, APD noted 20 calls for service relating to miscellaneous sex offenses in 2014, up from 16 similar calls in 2013.

Sex crime reports resulted in two arrests in 2014. There was one additional arrest for rape, while there were none in 2013.

Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said in a previous Post report that arrests following a sexual assault investigation are rare, especially if alcohol was involved.

“When sexual assault cases do involve alcohol, it exacerbates our ability to prosecute,” Pyle said in the previous Post report. “That’s a key element of sexual assault. It definitely is troublesome, to say the least.”

APD logged 12 reports for sex crimes in 2014; the department has seen an average of 15 of such incident reports each year for the past 10 years.

There were nine incident reports for rape in 2014, compared to the 11 reports for rape in both 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Bekki Wyss, a senior studying English and an organizer for F--kRapeCulture, said the lower amount of incident reports regarding rape — which the annual report notes are generated by calls for service that allege criminal conduct — could be due to survivors not wanting to enter a lengthy legal process.

Wyss, a previous Post columnist, noted that local law enforcement officials have made an effort to make themselves more approachable during this academic year, which could have led to a positive increase in calls for service.

“There are lots of reasons that someone might not want to go through with the legal process,” Wyss said. “It can be under an intense amount of scrutiny; it can be very long and very draining, and it can result in nothing. It’s very valid for people to say, ‘No, I don’t want that.’”

Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl said his office hasn’t looked into programs that could combat sexual assault specifically, noting the Ohio University Survivor Advocacy Program has done a good job of doing just that. Wiehl thinks awareness is key in decreasing the overall amount of assault in Athens.

“We can only put so many officers on the street,” Wiehl said. “It’s not a case of lighting; it’s not a case of behavior; it’s usually a case of a lot of people running around and not paying attention (to their surroundings) for the most part.”

The report noted that “a consistent staffing shortage for the latter part of the year has been the department’s most significant event causing not only coverage issues, but a shortage of manpower for initiatives such as enhanced traffic enforcement, community outreach, etc.”

APD has two vacant police officer positions.

The department logged 350 incident reports for disorderly conduct in 2014  — a violation typically related to alcohol offenses — compared to the 412 disorderly conduct offenses in 2013. The 2014 total is the lowest amount of incident reports for disorderly conduct since 2008, when the department saw 337 reports.

The department also appears to have gradually lowered its alcohol-related arrests. There were 436 arrests for such incidents in 2014 — a significant difference from the department’s 10-year average of 665 per year.

The department logged 182 incident reports related to underage drinking in 2014 — a roughly 10 percent decrease from the previous year. 

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Editor's Note: Below is the original version of this story which first ran on our website. 

The Athens Police Department released its 2014 annual report Wednesday morning, detailing the department's general goals and successes for the year — though not without hard numbers regarding arrests, incidents and calls for service as well. 

Overall, the report showed the department had seen fewer alcohol-related offenses, or at least had made fewer arrests for such crimes. However, reports for rowdy or "nuisance" parties increased slightly from previous years, even as noise complaints hit a ten-year low.

Additionally, the department has noted an increase in burglaries, though there was a decrease in theft reports. 

Don't feel like leafing through the report's dozens of pages? Don't worry, The Post has you covered. 

Alcohol-related offenses 

APD received 18 calls for alcohol-related offenses in 2014 — a nearly 75 percent decrease from the 73 alcohol-related calls in 2013. According to the annual report, APD hasn't seen calls this low for alcohol-related offenses since 2007, when there were 16 calls issued for such crimes.

However, the department received 396 calls labeled as "drunk" in 2014, though that's still down from the 406 calls in 2013.

APD also logged 350 incident reports for disorderly conduct in 2014  — a violation typically related to alcohol offenses — compared to the 412 offenses in 2013. That's the lowest amount of incident reports for disorderly conduct since 2008, when the department saw 337 reports. 

The department appeared to have gradually lowered its alcohol-related arrests, though. There were 436 arrests for such crimes in 2014, which is slightly fewer than the 494 arrests in 2013. But, the department considers 665 alcohol-related arrests to be "average" for its data made available from the past 10 years, meaning there's a roughly 34 percent difference in the amount of arrests typically made compared to 2014's alcohol-related arrests.

For underage drinking, the department logged 182 incident reports in 2014 — a roughly 10 percent decrease from the 203 underage drinking incident reports in 2013. 

Nuisance party and noise violations

The city's Nuisance Party Ordinance, which determines what makes a party too rowdy and can result in a $150 fine to offenders, prompted 55 calls for service to APD in 2014 — up from 53 in 2013 and 13 in 2012. For parties that were too loud for comfort, the department received 639 calls in 2014. That's an 11.5 percent decrease from the 722 calls for noise complaints in 2013.

2014's noise complaints resulted in 46 arrests, down by about 46 percent from 2013's 86 noise-related arrests. 

Theft and burglaries

There was a roughly 30 percent increase from 2013 to 2014 in the amount of burglaries noted in incident reports, though there was about a 13 percent decrease in calls for theft and a roughly 6 percent decrease in theft-related incident reports. As a result of the increase in burglaries and related crimes, the department arrested 27 people in 2014. 

Sexual assault and sex-related crimes

There were 26 calls into APD's dispatch regarding rape in 2014, putting the department at a 10-year high for such calls, and at a roughly 30 percent increase from the 18 calls regarding rape in 2013.

Additionally, APD noted 20 calls for service relating to miscellaneous sex offenses in 2014, up from the 16 similar calls in 2013. 

In terms of incident reports, though, APD logged 12 reports for sex crimes in 2013. According to APD, the department has seen an average of 15 of these incident reports each year for the past 10 years. 

There were nine incident reports for rape in 2014, compared to the 11 reports for rape in 2012 and 2013, respectively. 

Sex crime reports resulted in two arrests in 2014, according to the annual report. There was one arrest for rape, while there were none in 2013. 

Time and day of incident reports, calls for service

Saturday saw the highest level of calls for service, with more than 2,000 calls made to the Athens Police Department on average. Naturally, the second highest day for calls were Fridays, which saw just under 2,000 calls, while Sundays saw just under 1,800. 

Those calls were overwhelmingly made around midnight or 2 a.m., with a lull around 1 a.m. Calls were least likely to be made around 6 a.m., according to the report. 

Meanwhile, police officers penned incident reports Saturdays and Sundays, while arrests were most likely to occur Saturdays around 2 a.m.

Most of those arrests occurred in October — likely during the Athens Halloween Block Party — while incident reports occurred at an increase in both October and March of 2014, which was the beginning of fest season.

Traffic and tickets

APD noted 1,375 calls for traffic stops in 2014, down 31 percent from the  2,008 calls for traffic stops in 2013.

In terms of revenue garnered from parking tickets, APD's parking enforcement division gleaned nearly $342,000 for the city, which is a roughly 5 percent increase from the $325,318 received in 2013. 

From parking garage meters, the department was able to receive $139,205 for the city — also a roughly 5 percent increase from 2013's revenue. 

In all, parking enforcement officers issued 23,266 tickets in 2014, or about a 6 percent increase from tickets issued in 2013.