Felonies down, child support up in Kane County for 2014
Felony cases are down and child support collections are up, which are two highlights from Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon's Office's 2014 annual report released Tuesday.
Since 2010, 14 of the county's 16 murder victims knew their killers or had previous domestic relationships with them, McMahon said.
"That is both disturbing to me and it's reassuring," McMahon said in his monthly media briefing.
"It disturbing because it's evidence as these relationships end, they can be very tragic for the people involved and have proved to be fatal oftentimes," he continued. "But it's also reassuring to be because it's evidence Kane County is a safe place to live and work. The rate of random, violent crimes is extremely low in Kane County and that's reflective of the community that we live in and want to live in." Some highlights of 2014 for McMahon's office were:
• Felony cases filed were 2,258, a 3 percent decrease from the 2,329 filed in 2013 and a 41 percent drop from the high mark of 3,849 felony cases filed in 2007.
• The office's Child Support Division collected $24.27 million from noncustodial parents in 2014, a 4.5 percent increase over then $23.22 million collected in 2013.
The amount collected last year was 92 percent more than the $12.64 collected in 2006.
• Last year, 307 people were accepted into the county's deferred prosecution, or "second chance" program, for first-time felony offenders. Of those, 229 successfully completed it, and 69 did not, which is a success rate of 74.5 percent.
• The Kane County Child Advocacy Center, which is an arm of the state's attorney office that investigates cases of child sexual abuse and assault, conducted 294 investigations and charged 80 cases. Of those, 34 were resolved through either a conviction or plea and the remainder are pending.
• Domestic violence cases were mixed. McMahon's office filed 1,214 misdemeanor domestic violence cases, an increase of 4 percent from 2013. However, the 193 felony domestic violence cases filed in 2014 was down 5 percent from 2013.