SIDNEY — The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office saw 2017 as another busy year with calls and cases handled.
“We continued to see drugs as a factor in the majority of the crimes investigated,” said Sheriff John Lenhart. “The office continues to strive to provide the residents of Shelby County with a professional and courteous law enforcement agency.”
His report continues:
The operating budget for 2018 has increased to $4,732,148 up from $4,575,485 for 2016. With collaborated efforts of the Shelby County Commissioners and the Sheriff’s Office, we’re always striving to save valuable tax payers money. With the ever increasing operating cost, the Sheriff’s Office continues to offset some of those cost by entering into contractual services with other governmental agencies. The Sheriff’s Office has contracted with the following agencies and those contracts brought in:
• United States Marshalls Service for the housing of Federal inmates, $729,840
• Out of County housing of inmates from other jurisdictions, $242,185
• Police services with the Villages of Russia, $25,623
• Police services with the Village of Kettlersville, $5,796
• Patrol contract with the Shelby County Metropolitan Housing Authority, $12,739.92
• The city of Sidney inmate labor program, $57,000
• Ohio Department of Transportation, inmate labor program, $34,940.25
• Shelby County Metropolitan Housing Authority inmate labor program, $5,199.66
• City housing of inmates brought in $53,120
• Work release program brought in $48,587.75
All of these programs offset some of the operating cost and brought in a total of $1,215,031.40.
The Sheriff’s Office dispatch center logged 23,801 calls for service during 2017; we had 16,024 911 calls and we dispatched 2,304 fire/EMS calls. We handled 610 vehicle crashes, of these 610 crashes, 109 were injury accidents, 494 non-injury and seven fatalities. The office made 37 adult OVI and no juvenile OVI arrest in 2017. We issued 446 traffic citations in 2017 and 696 written warnings for various traffic violations. The office handled 959 criminal cases with 221 criminal arrests.
The SORN office supervised 120 sexual adult offenders and seven juvenile offenders. The deputies assigned to this department handled all of the supervision of the offenders to include their required reporting and the verification of assigned addresses. Nineoffenders were violated for non-compliance and presented to the Shelby County grand jury.
The Shelby County Animal Shelter took in a total of 587 dogs in the year 2017. Of these dogs, 326 were claimed by their owners and 215 were adopted. Based on these numbers, 92.1 percent of our population were reunited or found new homes for the 2017 year. The Animal Shelter is supervised by the Sheriff’s Office.
The Shelby County jail had an average daily population of 157 for 2017. Total number of inmates incarcerated in 2017 was 1950. The following is a breakdown of the percentage of arrest by agency:
• Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, 33 percent
• Sidney Police Department, 31 percent
• Federal, courts, villages, OSP, parole/probation, 18 percent
• Holding/other, 18 percent
We had 2642 Felony arrest, 3351 Misdemeanor arrest and 31 were charged with both. The average age of an incarcerated individual was between the ages of 26-30 and the average length of stay was 24 days.
The Sheriff’s Office continued to conduct various jail programs, which generated revenue paid directly by the inmates;
• Fresh favorites, $2,274
• E-cigarettes, $43,200
• Whole pizza, $12,419
• Commissary, $47,467.80
• Securus Phone system, $60,557
The total revenue generated by these programs was $173,642.80 for 2017.
The Transportation Deputy logged a total of 43,874 miles transporting inmates to and from Court, prison and various other locations.
The Sheriff’s Office civil section saw a decrease in Sheriff’s sales, with a total of 127 for 2017. The office issued 803 new CCW permits, renewed 261, and suspended nine in 2017. The office currently has a total of 6,766 CCW permits issued in Shelby County. The civil section processed and served 2,606 papers for 2017.
The DARE program had another successful year by graduating 438 students in 2017. In 2017 we welcomed two new schools to the program, Holy Angels and Sidney Christian. We conducted the DARE camp again with a total of 165 children participating. DARE participated in the Shelby County Fair, the Applefest and attended various other community events. A DARE float was seen at many of the parades throughout the County.
The Sheriff’s Office continued to have school resource officers at Sidney High, Houston and Anna high schools. We also have school safety officers at all of Sidney City schools and Fairlawn.
We are also pleased to announce we broke ground for the new animal shelter in 2017 and that we will be breaking ground sometime in the coming months for the Transitional Treatment facility here at the Sheriff’s Office.
It is a pleasure and honor serving as your sheriff; we are looking forward to making 2018 a safe, supportive and prosperous year for all residents and visitors of Shelby County.
