OVERALL CRIME RATE DOWN, BUT DRUG ARRESTS ON THE RISE

When Montgomery County Sheriff Jim Vazzi was reminded that the number of
people arrested for controlled substances in his county skyrocketed from 3
in 1999 to 26 in 2000, he only half-joked that there were probably 26 more
such arrests just last week.

"It's meth," he said of the highly addictive, homemade drug whose main
ingredients are found in drugstores and farmers' fields. "We did about
three labs last week," he said. "The arrest numbers are going up. There's
not just one person doing the cooking, there's four or five. Then they
teach others how to do it. So you get one group off the street and there's
another waiting to take its place. We've got a guy in jail now, and this is
our third time to arrest him in six months."

Montgomery County is not alone, according to the Illinois State Police, who
released statewide crime statistics for the year 2000 this week. The annual
report records violent crimes, property crimes, drug arrests and other
offenses.

Crime continued to fall throughout most of Illinois last year, continuing
the trend of the past several years.

That was true in most central Illinois counties, too. But despite the drop
in overall crime rates, the number of drug arrests increased, very
dramatically in some areas. And like Montgomery County, officials in many
area counties attribute the rise to the methamphetamine plague.

"Anyone who says they don't have a meth or drug problem in their county is
a blind person," said Schuyler County Sheriff Don Schieferdecker.

Schuyler County's crime rate as a whole dropped nearly 65 percent, but the
county's drug arrest rate shot up 838 percent. Besides the infiltration of
methamphetamine, Schieferdecker said, the sheriff's department put together
a drug task force last year and made 33 arrests as a result.

Other Springfield-area counties that saw their crime rates decrease even
though their drug arrest rates increased were: Cass, a 1.6 percent decline
in crime but a 13.6 percent increase in the drug arrest rate; Christian, a
1.2 percent decrease in crime and a 55.5 percent increase in the drug
arrest rate; and Scott, with a 38.8 percent decrease in the crime rate and
a 30.4 percent increase in the drug arrest rate.

Although the number of Montgomery County arrests for controlled substances
jumped sharply, a corresponding drop in arrests for marijuana meant the
overall drug arrest rate climbed by only 3.6 percent. Crime overall
decreased by 4 percent in the county Some counties saw increases in both
rates, such as Greene County, which saw a 51.1 percent increase in crime
and a 1.3 percent increase in the drug arrest rate.

In the same boat were Macoupin County, with a 5.9 percent crime rate
increase and 9.9 percent drug crime rate increase; and Menard, with
increases of 17.9 percent overall and 20.1 percent for drugs.

Counties with decreases in both overall crime and drug crime rates were:
Logan, 1.7 percent overall and 12.9 percent in drug crimes; and Morgan,
22.6 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

Sangamon County had a 2.5 percent increase in overall crime, but a 3.6
percent decrease in the drug crime rate. Mason County saw a 12.1 percent
increase in overall crime, but a 39.7 percent decrease in the drug crime rate.

Greene County saw the most dramatic crime rate increase in central Illinois
- - 51.1 percent. Sheriff Michael Fry said crime decreased in rural areas of
the county. He said the rate increase was due to more crime in some of the
county's municipalities, such as White Hall.

The number of aggravated assault and battery cases more than doubled in
Greene County and burglaries climbed by 40 percent, accounting for most of
the countywide crime increase.

This year's state police report did not compare changes in crime rates
between 1999 and 2000 for individual towns, as it has in years past. That's
because the 2000 census numbers showed that population estimates for many
municipalities in 1999 were significantly different than the actual numbers.

Capt. Dave Sanders, spokesman for the Illinois State Police, said the
agency until this year used best-guess estimates for population numbers.

"This year we had hard numbers from the census, and we stuck with those
numbers," he said. "We continued to do a comparison at the state and county
levels because those numbers weren't as affected."

Statewide, the report shows that crime rates plunged by nearly 26 percent
during the 1990s. Last year, Illinoisans reported just under 44 crimes per
1,000 people; the 1990 rate was nearly 60 crimes per 1,000.

The statewide crime rate dropped 4.5 percent from 1999 to 2000.

But drug arrest rates climbed 2.9 percent in 1999 and by 9.3 percent over
the decade.

Vazzi said he expects to see that trend continue, especially in central
Illinois, and he said the increase can be directly attributed to meth.

"The problem has progressed just from the end of last year through this
time this year," he said. "The counties all around us have seen trailers
blowing up ... it's kind of scary."