DUSON, La. (KLFY)-- Duson Police Chief Kip Judice is gleaming with pride in his department and his community after stats reveal almost every category has a significant reduction in crimes.

“Going through our 2023 crime stats we have determined that we've seen the lowest overall crime rate in the town of Duson since 2015," Judice said.

There are many contributing factors to the reduction of the numbers in crime; one is community outreach.

“Our community relations are working really well," Judice said. "The community has a great buy-in in our policing techniques and they assist us. They step out and they come forward when there's something that they witness that helps a police department tremendously."

Judice also said the staff's proactive and upfront approach to those committing crimes is another reason for the reduction. He said the team works to hold people accountable for their wrongdoings.

“So those things are awesome. You know, when I look just a couple of miles to the west and a couple of miles to the east, I see crime stats that are out of the roof with a lot of police agencies," Judice said. "So to be able to sit here and be able to say that we have a reduction in every one of the categories rape, murder, attempted murder, assaults, armed robberies, that's an amazing, amazing feat. So we're really happy with those numbers and we're looking forward to trying to build on that as we continue to grow here in the town of Duson.”

The department would take each annual total from that category, and then added them up and divided them by nine and came up with an average number of crimes per year. They also looked at what the department actually had in 2023. There were zero murders in 2023 compared to the one in 2022 where a gunman killed four people including himself in a Lafayette Parish shooting spree.

In 2015, when Judice became chief, there were 64 theft reports, last year shows 22. In home invasions and burglary there were 41 in 2015. In 2023, there were 16; those were just a few the chief highlighted.

“In almost every category, there was a significant reduction in those crimes," Judice said. "That's a big deal and again, hands down, I think it's a statistic that many other police agencies really can't discuss, especially considering that we've had an increase in population.”

Judice said the population is little over 2,000 people. Even with the new subdivisions in the community it has not shown impact on crime. He said one of the first things his department did when the subdivision opened was have an open house to introduce the police department officers and get to know the people and make relationships, which he said makes a big difference in terms of trust from police to residents.

“We have not had anybody out-migration kind of stuff and nothing else has really changed in terms of significant factors, contributing factors to criminal activity,” he said. “We still have an interstate that runs right through our community. There's not been a significant decrease in the amount of criminals necessarily involved coming through our community, but the crime levels are down. So, I think that we are doing some stuff to deter crime.”

“When a community gets behind a police department and they want to become a witness and become effective in their community," Judice added. "It makes a huge difference, and this is evidence of that."

In addition, he told News 10 his department hasn’t had a significant amount of turnover which is a positive.

“When you don't have a reduction in staff and you have to start training from scratch too to bring people on board and also when you're able to keep staff; one of the things that I think happens is that they understand the ways of the community and they develop relationships and those things matter. It's not anything that you can just plug and play a new officer in and all of a sudden people respect or know him. It takes time for him to get out there in the community and share some relationships before we get that confidence built in officers,” he said.

“It’s not just me," he concluded. "My staff does a great job. The community does a great job. The businesses really help to fortify some of their stuff, not leaving it so accessible. We've been educating some of our business owners on not leaving stuff out in the front of places so that potentially it's easier to steal. So all of those things I think are great talking points with regards to making sure the community understands how we achieved these successes.”

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