LARNED — Pawnee County Attorney Doug McNett has issued the 2020 county case statistics report. McNett said the information presented in the report is based solely on which agency drafted the affidavit.
Agencies include the Larned Police Department, Pawnee County Sheriff, Kansas Highway Patrol, Kansas Department of Corrections, Larned State Hospital and “other.”
“The general classification of the type of case of the filings was based on the primary nature of each case,” said McNett. “Like everyone else in the world, COVID did impact our numbers.”
According to data in the report:
• The county saw a dip in adult criminal cases from 2019 to 2020. The 2019 figures show 193 adult criminal cases filed compared to 160 in 2020.
• Child in need of care (CINC) cases also saw a decline from 53 filings reported in 2019 to 38 in 2020.
• Care and treatment filings increased from 56 in 2019 to 147 in 2020.
• There were no case filings for either year for fish and game.
• Pawnee County also saw an increase in juvenile offender filings, from 12 cases in 2019 to 20 in 2020.
• Traffic citations saw a dramatic drop from 1,399 to 594.
• The county reported 26 declined cases in 2019 and 29 in 2020.
• Domestic violence cases dropped from 37 in 2019 to 23 in 2020, while sex offenses increased from five to seven.
“A domestic violence offense means any crime committed whereby the underlying factual basis includes an act of domestic violence,” McNett said.
Domestic violence is defined as an act or threatened act of violence against a person the offender is dating, or has dated, or a person of which the offender is a family or household member. Domestic violence also includes any other crime committed against a person or property, or any municipal ordinance violation, when directed against a person with whom the offender is involved or has been involved in a dating relationship, or when directed against a family or household member by a family or household member.
According to information provided by the county attorney’s office, the Larned Police Department saw a nine-case decrease from 105 to 96 total cases from 2019 to 2020. Meanwhile, the Pawnee County Sheriff’s Office saw a dip in total cases reported from 59 to 33. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation reported no cases filed in 2019 and seven in 2020.
Kansas Highway Patrol reported five case totals in 2019 and 2020. Kansas Department of Corrections saw a drop in total cases from 28 in 2019 to 11 in 2020. Larned State Hospital filed 55 cases in 2020, up from 45 reported in 2019. In total (including cases reported by other lead agencies such as the Kansas Department of Children and Families and Fort Larned USD 495) Pawnee County saw 38 fewer cases filed, from 315 in 2019 to 277 filed in 2020.
