The Medford Township Police Department has increased their presence within the community, Chief of Police says
The New Jersey Uniform Crime Report shows a decrease in overall crime in Medford in 2017.
Compared to the numbers from 2016, Medford’s total crime numbers have dropped by 26.1 percent overall, from 249 in 2016, to 184 in 2017.
While Chief of Police Richard J. Meder explained crime numbers are unpredictable, Medford police have taken substantial initiatives within the community to reduce those figures.
“It’s always good, as chief of police, to take a look at our statistics and see that they’re down by over 25 percent. That certainly is something we want to see,” Meder said. “You can never predict crime. It’s going to change year to year, but one of the things I think we’re doing is we’re starting to bring back personnel.”
Meder said the police department has been able to increase its staffing through coordination and cooperation with town officials.
“We concentrate our officers in the neighborhood, in the business areas, to try to prevent burglaries and those types of things,” Meder said. “We’ve also established great relationships with our business leaders [and] our community members. We’re talking with them, and they’re giving us ideas and suggestions on how we can better serve them. I think it’s a combination of all that.”
Despite having school resource officers present in Lenape and Shawnee high schools and Burlington County Institute of Technology full-time, Meder said officers are also required to visit schools on their daily patrols to try to further prevent crime. According to Meder, this police presence in the schools deters simple assaults, drugs and other crimes.
“We have very, very good relationships with [the] businesses and community,” Meder said. “They feel comfortable to come and report things to us because we put ourselves out there. [We’re] easily accessible to anybody and everybody.”
Meder said the police department also takes measures to host events with the community and give residents the opportunity to interact with officers.
“We host events — Coffee with a Cop, National Night Out, things like that — with the sole purpose of getting the community to talk to us and let us know what issues they’re having so we can address them,” Meder said.
According to Meder, the number of total offenses cleared, or solved, which stands at 21.2 percent, is going to increase.
“We have corrections that we need to make,” Meder said, explaining there were issues with the data entry regarding the number of offenses cleared. “Some of these numbers, when I looked at them, caused me to have my staff look into them further, and we’re finding that some of that data entry needs to be corrected. Like simple assault — we’ve cleared many more than what that’s showing,” Meder said.
While the report shows a 29.9 percent decrease in larceny, a 66.7 percent decrease in motor vehicle thefts, a 26.1 percent decrease in simple assaults and a 75 percent decrease in robberies, the numbers show a 60 percent increase in rape. There were five reports in 2016, and eight reports in 2017. Meder said some of these cases are still open and active investigations.
