PCSO Aims To Keep Crime Rates Low Following TBI Report

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office aims keep crime rates low after the TBI released its annual crime report.

The report indicates PCSO made nearly three times more arrests for Class A offenses than any other Upper Cumberland sheriff’s department. Class A offenses include but are not limited to aggravated and sexual assaults, kidnapping, and murder.

Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said violent crime rates, like the rest of the state, have decreased over the last few years.

“[With] The rate of growth that we have in this county, as long as we can keep our violent crime to where it’s at now, then I think it’s a win,” Farris said. “We don’t have a lot of violent crime here, although we do have some. We have lots of folks coming in here and we estimate we feel like we’re servicing around 95,000 every single day here in Putnam County.”

Farris said overall, he’s happy with the overall low crime rates despite the rapid growth of the region.

“For the crime rate that we have right now, I’m pleased with that,” Farris said. “I’ve made the statement many times that as long as we can keep the crime rate where it’s at, then we’re advancing and getting better and we’re maintaining where it should be because our population is growing so fast right now.”

Approximately 450 of the department’s 1,878 reported offenses in 2018 were Class A offenses. Clay County had the highest rate of Class A offenses among across the Upper Cumberland at about 38 percent despite having the lowest total number of offenses reported.

The full TBI report can be found on the state’s website.