FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. — The Flagler County Sheriff's Office ​is seeing a historic drop in crime.

  • Residential burglary down by 25 percent; car break-ins down at 45 percent
  • Weekly crime meeting credited for drop in crime
  • Deputy says meeting helps law enforcement to be proactive
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Crime numbers have dropped 22 percent to the lowest it has been in 14 years and arrests are up 15 percent, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff Rick Staley attributes the low crime numbers to Sheriff's Office's weekly Crime Reduction, Intelligence Monitoring, Employee Management, and Agency Performance Summary (CRIMEMAPS) meetings.

"The CRIMEMAPS is the way that we analyze crime, almost on a real time basis, so that we can focus our team on fighting crime, the hotspots," said Staly.

The weekly meeting brings together law enforcement officials and volunteers from all across the county where they discuss different trends they are noticing and how to approach them.

"We hold this meeting every week and then once a month we add to it and it's also the way that we manage the entire agency," he said.

During the meeting, they also discussed that residential burglary is down 25 percent, car break-ins are down 45 percent and stolen vehicles are down 21 percent countywide.

For Watch Commander Jason Neat, who has been at the Flagler County Sheriff's Office for 17 years, this information makes a big impact on his job.

"It almost gives myself as well as the deputies on the road a floor plan or a map to combat the crime that is happening," said Neat. "If we don't have the people that are putting the numbers together and figuring out the trends before they happen, then we can't really combat them until they happen on shift. If I know ahead of time that this is going on, then I can direct all my resources to that area to try and fix the problem."

Neat said knowing the statistics allows law enforcement to get ahead of the crime before it happens, bringing the crime statistics to historical lows.

"So we aren't being reactive anymore, we are almost being proactive based upon the data we are getting", said Neat. ​