Cheap meth driving down some property crimes in Wichita, police official says
Wichita’s burglary, automobile larceny and gun theft from vehicle rates were down last year.
The reason? Cheap meth.
That’s according one police official who said at a public meeting last month that the Wichita Police Department is attributing “a very significant drop” in those property crime categories to record-low methamphetamine prices.
“There’s a couple of things we did” as a department to help curb those crimes, Deputy Chief Jose Salcido told fellow criminal justice professionals and elected leaders during the Jan. 23 Criminal Justice Coordinating Council meeting.
“But mainly it is due to the price of methamphetamine. It’s now at a 20-year record low.”
During the meeting, Salcido cited double-digit percent decreases in those crime categories, year over year. Meth, he said, is now selling for $2,400 a pound, or about nine times less than just five years ago.
“The market is saturated. There’s no incentive for criminals to go steal to finance their habits like in the past,” Salcido said.
Thieves “are still breaking into things but not taking as much.”
The street price of the drug has tumbled in Kansas in recent years as smugglers have trafficked increasing quantities of purer, cheaper meth across the U.S.-Mexican border. A 2018 Kansas Bureau of Investigation report — the latest available — lists the per-pound street price of meth at $3,500 to $5,000, depending on sale location. An ounce costs between $250 and $500.
In 2014, though, meth sold for about three times as much: $13,000 to $15,000 for a pound and $800 to $1,200 for an ounce, according to the report.
Dealers typically buy meth by the pound while users tend to buy by the ounce or gram.
A gram, which sells locally for around $20 now, contains about four hits, or highs.
“In the past when meth was so expensive, you had a lot more stuff getting stolen,” Salcido said in an interview with The Eagle after the meeting.
Five years ago, police were seeing meth sell in Wichita for as much as $22,000 a pound at times, he said.
“Now it’s so cheap that there’s still theft, but they (addicts) actually get enough to buy more meth.”
According to statistics provided by the Wichita Police Department, last year:
- Burglary reports were down 19.1%, from 3,386 reports in 2018.
- The city had 255 guns reported stolen from vehicles, a 17.5% drop from 2018.
- Vehicle larcenies — theft of items from inside a car — decreased 9.5%, from 4,413 reports in 2018. This does not include theft of items stolen off of a vehicle like license plates, catalytic converters and other accessories, which increased 24% year over year.
Although the Wichita Police Department is attributing the decrease in burglaries, guns stolen from vehicles and auto larcenies mainly to cheap meth, officials say public education campaigns focusing on crime prevention and other initiatives have also helped.
The department also took about 145 pounds of meth off the streets through seizures last year, Wichita police spokesman Officer Charley Davidson said.
This story was originally published February 9, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
