Police report: South Ogden sees long-term drops in property and violent crimes; drug and homelessness work continues

Chief Jake Souvy reported to the South Ogden City Council that the city has seen substantial long-term reductions in many measured crimes while some categories tied to proactive enforcement and drug interdiction have risen.

Souvy said the department measures crime using both legacy Part 1 crime comparisons and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). He reported 266 Part 1 crimes per 10,000 residents in the city and said Part 1 crimes are down about 55% since 2016. Comparing peer cities, he said Sandy’s rate is 264 per 10,000 while Salt Lake City’s is 646 per 10,000.

The department reported declines since 2020 in persons crimes (a 7% drop from 2020–2024 and 4% year-to-year from 2023–2024) and a 42% reduction in property crimes since 2020, with a 6% drop from 2023 to 2024. By contrast, Souvy said “society” crimes — largely drug offenses and prostitution that the department often detects proactively — rose about 25% from 2020 to 2024; he characterized that increase as partly a sign of proactive policing that helps reduce property and person crimes.

Souvy also reviewed the department’s public-facing measurements. Since 2022 the department has used Spider Tech post-interaction surveys; in the most recent year, about 6,200 survey requests were sent and the department’s overall satisfaction score averaged 4.37 on the Spider Tech scale (Spider Tech’s mean reported as 4.35). Subscores he cited included professionalism (4.62) and knowledge/thoroughness (4.55).

On homelessness and panhandling, Souvy said the department and its homeless service advocates had 2,359 contacts with people experiencing homelessness last year and helped house 54 adults and 21 children during 2024. He said aggressive panhandling counts have fluctuated (he gave example year counts of 17 in 2021, 14 in 2022, 42 in 2023 and said 2024 included six documented aggressive-panhandling case reports), and that the department’s community policing unit and homeless-service partners focus on non‑enforcement outreach as much as possible.

Souvy described calls-for-service and workload: he reported about 45,000 inbound calls for service in 2024 (an average of roughly 25 calls per day) and said department activities including proactive patrols push total annual police activities “well over” 100,000.

On drugs, Souvy said fentanyl has become the most concerning drug locally and nationally; he described involvement with the governor’s fentanyl task force, legislative changes under consideration to increase penalties for distribution, and cross‑agency efforts such as receiving centers and strike-force work to address both supply and demand. He said the department is tracking fentanyl specifically in monthly briefings and pursuing targeted enforcement and partnerships.

Council members asked about survey response fatigue (Council member Graf) and whether Spider Tech’s web surveys remain effective; Souvy said Spider Tech’s response rate is about 20% locally (higher than Spider Tech’s average of about 14%), and that restoring a Weber State–style community survey would add valuable neighborhood-level perception data. Council members also asked whether panhandlers were primarily people experiencing homelessness; Souvy said in Ogden most panhandling appears to involve people who are homeless, though he acknowledged variation across jurisdictions.

The department identified a few follow-up tasks: staff will continue to analyze the causes of the drop in recorded disruptive behavior and will keep tracking fentanyl trends monthly; the department will continue to coordinate with homeless-service advocates to prioritize housing and non‑enforcement contacts.

Despite rising society-crime counts, Souvy framed the overall trend as positive: declines in property and person crimes and strong community satisfaction scores, while noting persistent concerns about fentanyl, the need for continuing homelessness services, and the limits of enforcement-alone solutions.