Thefts down in county; burglary, molesting cases up

The Wabash Plain Dealer Online: "Thefts are down but burglaries are up slightly. Child molesting cases are way up, but traffic accidents involving injury or death are down almost as dramatically.

Sheriff Leroy Striker's annual report contains lots of information - nuggets enough to both satisfy and slightly alarm citizens and taxpayers.

It's all in a statistic-packed five page report from Striker summarizing Wabash County Sheriff's Department activity and activity at the jail in 2006.

Jail overcrowding remains one of the issues, but there were important developments on that front: Though the average daily population of the jail increased from 87.7 in 2005 to 92.7 in 2006, the sense of being overcrowded perhaps lessened a bit because some remodeling increased the rated capacity of the facility from 60 to72.

A long term trend continued in 2006: Fewer total bookings at the jail, but longer stays by those in jail. The result: Daily jail population remains generally on an upward course.

Jail bookings dropped about 100 per year, each year between 2002 and 2006. But during those same years, the average length of stay increased from 17.2 days to 26.76 days. As a result the average daily population increased during those years from 80 to 92.69."