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Personal Safety, Security & Crime Statistics

2006 Texas Crime Index by rates (per 100,000):

* Crime rates for Carthage were significantly LOWER in six of the seven index offenses when compared with statewide rates.

* The 2006 Index Crime Rate total for the State was 4599.6 and the Carthage rate was 3471.6 which is below 80% of the state average.

Source: Texas Department of Public Safety - Uniform Crime Reporting Bureau 5805 North Lamar Blvd. Austin, Texas 78752-4422

* Crime rates for Panola County were significantly LOWER in five of the seven index offenses when compared with statewide rates.

* The 2006 Index Crime Rate total for the State was 4599.6 and the Panola County rate was 2291.5 which is below 80% of the state average.

* There was a 100% clearance rate by arrest for all Panola County murder and rape offenses.

Source: Texas Department of Public Safety - Uniform Crime Reporting Bureau 5805 North Lamar Blvd. Austin, Texas 78752-4422

Total Sworn Personnel: 75

Although staffing figures alone do not necessarily represent performance, they can indicate the preparedness of jurisdictions to respond to calls for service, insure rapid response, investigation of crimes and arrest of offenders.  Law Enforcement staffing can become problematic when it does not keep pace with population growth, but our jurisdiction has excelled in this area achieving a ratio of 1 Officer to every 312.3 residents.

Source: Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education 6330 U.S. 290 East, Suite 200 Austin, TX. 78723

IDENTIX Tenprint and Mugshot Booking Station Automated Fingerprint Identification System Station (AFIS)

Panola County law enforcement is using the power of biometrics to quickly identify known criminals at the booking process, check watch lists and build online photo lineups, even when a picture or composite sketch is the only available information.  Using the state of the art IDENTIX system that is currently in use by over 15,000 agencies in over 20 countries, it eliminates the use of ink and paper fingerprint cards and streamlines prisoner processing.
The Panola County IDENTIX system which went online in early 2007 has multi-biometric capture options (including face and iris) for building and searching against a complete identity record set.  It also offers enhanced investigative support that puts officers in control with a complete identity solution that includes face, scars, marks and tattoos, finger, and multi- incident data capture components for processing and transmitting criminal reports to other agencies including the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety.  

The Panola County IDENTIX system is the same one currently in use at the California Department of Justice, Chicago Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Texas Department of Public Safety.  Additionally, as a designated AFIS station, the Panola County Sheriff’s Department IDENTIX system automatically submits arrest or applicant data to the AFIS system at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Texas Department of Public Safety.  This usually generates a response within minutes.  It is also used to search and match one or many unknown fingerprints against a database of known prints in the FBI or Texas DPS database.  This has resulted in the apprehension many wanted offenders who were utilizing fraudulent or fictitious identification and has aided in the investigation of offenses by matching unidentified latent fingerprints recovered at crime scenes with offenders.