Despite an uptick in fatal shootings this summer, the Peoria County Sheriff’s office says crime is at its lowest levels in 15 years.
The Jail population has hovered below 400 during the past few months, compared to around 600 a year ago. County Sheriff Mike McCoy says the decreasing jail census is consistent with the local and national trends of an overall decline in crime.
“There’s a certain population of the community that’s going to continue to have guns and wage wars," McCoy Said. "And I think people don’t want to go to jail for 25 or 35 years because of the association of some of the shooting.”
McCoy says he thinks the decline is a result of the Don’t Shoot program. Don’t Shoot arrested and charged 53 people of violent crime this past year.
“And everybody that we’ve arrested and charged as a shooter has been found guilty," McCoy said. "So, we have 53 people now off the streets in Peoria that have shot somebody.”
He says crime in Peoria is largely condensed to a few neighborhoods. During his 43 years working at the sheriff's office, he has jailed the fathers and grandfathers of convicts currently behind bars, McCoy said.