Although police officials across the country say the economy isfueling a crime rise, with almost half the jurisdictions polledreporting a rise in late December and early January, areaauthorities say they have seen no drastic change locally.

Of 233 police agencies surveyed by the Police Executive ResearchForum, a Washington-based law enforcement organization, 44 percentreported a rise in certain types of crime they felt could beattributed to the country’s economic situation. Local departmentheads said while there has not been a dramatic climb in crimepercentages, they have seen some evidence of the economiccrunch.

Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing said the crimes that areoccurring more frequently these days involve small things, but it’sstill not as bad as when gas prices were up to as high as $4 inmid-2008.

“Obviously when gas went up before, we had a little differencein the smaller thefts, things missing from yards and things,” hesaid. “But things like metal theft, while we’re still havingproblems, it’s not nearly as much since the prices went down.”

Brookhaven Police Chief Pap Henderson said while he has seen anumber of smaller crimes on the rise, many of them are beingcommitted by repeat offenders and not by people who are newlyaffected by economic crises.

“There has been some increase in small crimes that we’rehaving,” said. “But we can’t really blame that on the economy. Ithink we have a few people using it as an excuse.”

Wesson Police Chief Chad O’Quinn said while Wesson has remainedfairly even-keel, there’s no way to tell if that will be thecontinuing trend should the economy continue to worsen.

“I can’t specifically predict if Wesson will get worse,” hesaid. “But I think it’s foreseeable that any municipality could belooking at a rise in crime as poverty increases.”

But Henderson said it’s not necessarily the poverty affectingthe crime rate in Brookhaven.

“I look at the ones we’re arresting for crimes, and they’re notworking or haven’t worked,” he said. “The ones we’re arresting, I’mnot blaming the economy. These crimes weren’t done because theywere laid off.”

Rushing said many of the county crimes are still being boileddown to the usual suspects as well.

“We’ve had a little rise in theft in general, and most of thetime we’re finding these are being committed by people we’ve dealtwith before,” he said.

Overall, Henderson said, so far the trends have shown thatpeople will act within their character for the most part, no matterhow the economy is faring.

“We have the people who fill up their gas tanks and drive off,”he said. “But there’s a small percentage of people who would dothat even if it was down to a dollar a gallon.”