Bend, Ore. – As the Bend Police Department finished the 2016 calendar year, the department compiled several end-of-year statistics.
During 2016, Bend PD facilitated two programs in an effort to increase livability and continue to make staff more available for community interactions.
The Bend Police Department understands that bicycles are a very important part of commuting in the community. There are a tremendous amount of bicycles owned in Bend and Deschutes County, and the department recognized bicycles were being stolen at an alarming rate. During the spring and summer of 2016 they started a proactive program designed at reducing bicycle theft in Bend. What the department found from end of the year data was bicycle theft numbers decreased by more than 50% from 2015 and are at a seven year low. This is the first year reported thefts of bicycles were less than 200 in seven years.
In addition, as the Bend PD reviewed calls from previous years, they found they were responding to a very high number of false alarms. The department began enforcing the City ordinance regarding false alarms. An alarm owner is warned after the first false alarm, fined $250 dollars for the second false alarm and fined $500 for false alarms after that within a calendar year. With the implementation of this process, we saw a 12.1% decrease in false alarm calls.
The Bend Police Department responded to 87,213 calls for service in 2016.
