Mondays reports alone included several incidents of theft-by-taking, burglary, entering an auto, and theft of services. Could this be due to an economy crisis?

Chief Deputy Dan Kilgore of the Upson County Sheriff’s Office said he thinks that could be the case.

“Investigations has been steady this year to say the least,” he said. “I feel this is probably the busiest year in investigations we’ve had in a long time.”

Captain William Hosley seemed to think quite the opposite.

“As far as crime goes, it’s in and out,” said Hosley.

“It cycles,” agreed Kilgore. “It all relates to what individuals are out on the streets at the time. We do our best to make sure that those individuals get put behind bars so we can keep the crime rate down.”

Residential areas suffer from the amount of thefts on a regular basis.

“Now retail places like Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and places like that, you’re going to see crimes increase because of shoplifting when the economy is bad,” said Hosley.

There was a burglary at the Upson County Animal Shelter and nothing appeared to be missing, but it is currently under investigation.

Kilgore said forgeries aren’t something they dealwith outside of the city limits because there aren’t any banks.

However, inside the city limits, forgeries and bank account fraud have been a recurring incident covered in the Police Beat in the paper each week.

There are also resource officers in place at both Upson-Lee Middle School and Upson-Lee High School. “Having resource officers at the schools has been an absolute plus,” said Kilgore.

Hosley said before deputies Todd Murphy and Nason Blackwell were put in place crimes committed in the schools were more predominant than they are now.

“They’re stealing stuff right out of peoples’ lockers,” said Hosley.

So whether it’s residences, business, or even at schools, crime is present. Whether it is closely related to the struggling economy or not is a question that seems to have no concrete answer.

“There’s always something going on in law enforcement,” said Kilgore.

There is no doubt about that.