By STEVEN CALHOUN/Staff Writer

The Clanton Police Department has released its annual crime statistics for 2016 and revealed its focus for 2017.

According to the statistics, which were updated on Jan. 5, reportable incidents declined by nine percent overall, from 2,436 in 2015 to 2,216 in 2016. Drug related incidents were down from the previous year by nearly 24 percent and there were no reported homicides for the year.

The number of arrests made a slight decline from 2015 to 2016, while the number of felony arrests decreased by 19 percent.

“As a whole we had a relatively quiet year,” Chief Keith Maddox said as he knocked on his wooden desk. “Everyone [on our staff] was safe. We had no injuries. With me that’s always going to be the biggest challenge – keeping the officers safe.”

Maddox said the department worked hard in 2016 to keep crime levels low, and credited this accomplishment to the officers doing their jobs from the patrol level up through the ranks.

Looking to 2017, the department plans to continue modernizing and improving.

“We’re trying now to make progress with the department,” Maddox said. “We’re public servants. We’re here to help any way we can and enforce the laws … and do it fairly and to the best of our ability.”

The chief does not foresee growing the size of the staff in 2017, but envisions progressing in modern law enforcement endeavors and “making sure [the department is] heading in the right direction with the challenges that [it] is facing in this day and age.”

He mentioned the work of Captain David Clackley, in whom the department has invested training to handle cyber crimes, and said the department will be training more officers to handle the recent increase in cyber crime.

Communication with the public is another key improvement the department has planned for 2017. The CPD adopted the use of an online crime reporting system in 2016 and frequently received help and feedback from the community through the CPD’s website and Facebook.

“You can never have enough communication and work with the public. We’d like to think nobody can fully understand what we do unless they do it,” Maddox said. “To a certain extent that’s true, but if we can work with the public and help them understand what we do, it might relieve tension in a lot of situations … We can always do more and we can always improve.”

To contact the CPD, visit clantonpd.org and view the “Contact” tab for options, or visit the department’s Facebook page.