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Reports showed less crime for Lisbon in 2018

LISBON — Crime was down in the village last year, and the police chief believes it is because of the additional officers he was able to add and by going to 10-hour shifts.

The police report for 2018 provided to Village Council at this week’s meeting showed the number of breaking and enterings, attempted or otherwise, declined from 30 in 2017 to eight. The number of thefts dropped by a third, from 100 to 66.

Meanwhile, the number of non-traffic charges doubled from 81 to 166, while traffic citations increased from 498 to 639. Traffic stops in general increased significantly, from 1,478 to 1,957.

Abraham believes the drop in thefts and break-ins, along with the spike in traffic citations and non-traffic charges are directly attributable to an increase in the number of police officers and how they are deployed. In late 2017, council gave Abraham permission to increase the number of full-time officers from seven to nine, which enabled him to switch to 10-hour shifts and reduce reliance on part-time officers.

Switching to 10-hour shifts also increased coverage by creating shift overlap, with three officers on duty for several hours most days instead of just two officers.

The police department was forced to return to eight-hour shifts about two months ago because of the number of officers leaving for better paying jobs. The newspaper determined in November Abraham lost six full-time officers in 2018, three of whom left for better paying jobs.

Abraham told council in November police salaries need to be increased if he is going to compete with other departments and slow the revolving door, and there has been recent discussions about possibly placing a police levy on the ballot.

At this week’s meeting, Abraham requested an executive session to discuss officer wages and the closed-door meeting lasted 30 minutes, but no action resulted.

Meanwhile, council’s finance committee is scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. Monday, followed immediately afterwards by a meeting of the the council parks committee.

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