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Sheriff Greg Champagne is proud to announce that St. Charles Parish has achieved a 24-year-record low crime rate for 2019 as documented through the UCR system.  The “UCR”, also referred to as Uniformed Crime Reporting, is the nationally mandated crime-reporting format by the F.B.I.  This UCR system documents crime statistics across seven major categories.  These categories include murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, and auto theft.

Sheriff Champagne accredits this astonishing record low through diligent, hard work from all the divisions of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office. The dedicated and vested members of our St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office have personal incentives to provide the best possible services to our community. To our employees, this is not just a job. This chosen career is about helping their friends, family members, neighbors, and businesses in a community that most of our employees call home. Throughout our divisions inside the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office, the employees are recognizing deficiencies, adapting to changes in policing, and voluntarily improving because they take pride in working to achieve a safer community for everyone in St. Charles Parish.

This record low also stems from a dedicated collaboration from the 29^th Judicial District Courts, Joel Chaisson and his remarkable team at the District Attorney’s Office, Parish Government, and the St. Charles Parish Public School System.  We have closer than ever partnerships with our elected counterparts in St. Charles Parish. This is a key factor in providing outreach services that benefit our senior population, activities to keep our younger population off of the streets, and having programs catered to fill the needs provided by all members of the parish.

Our citizens have shown astonishing support and complete commitment in improving their communities by helping the men and women of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office build personal relationships, working hand and hand to deter crime in the communities. Our citizens attend countless hours of public awareness training held by the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office, as well as host community events in which they invite members of the Sheriff’s Office so that they can discuss concerns in individual communities throughout the parish.  With our transparency using social media to inform citizens of crime occurrences throughout our parish, it enlightens citizens of current crime trends occurring. This enables citizens to be knowledgeable of what to look for in their community and subsequently provides that many more sets of eyes watching for suspicious activities occurring.

With all of the mentioned factors, St. Charles Parish has respectfully observed a reduction in crime, with 2,818 crimes reported in 1996, to 1,216 crimes reported in 2019.  This shows a 53 percent total drop, coinciding with an increase in parish population by nearly 6,000 residents in the same documented years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In conclusion, Sheriff Champagne quotes his agencies mission statement, which reads, “The Members of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office are dedicated to providing the highest quality law enforcement services in order to enhance community safety, protect life and property, and reduce crime.  We pledge individually and collectively to develop a partnership with the entire community, striving to resolve problems and improve the quality of life that is unique to our parish. This is not just our mission statement; this is our commitment.  With lower crime numbers, better technology, more training for us as Law Enforcement Officers as well as our citizens, and stronger relationships from every vested partner in St. Charles Parish, our goal is to never settle.”