Monroe County town enjoys a less than 1% crime rate

MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A low crime rate is something every town chases after, but rarely catches.

That’s not the case for a town in Monroe County.

Sheriff Cecil Cantrell says Smithville has the lowest crime rate in the county.

The town has a small population, but a lot of work goes into keeping crime down.

Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell says Smithville has a crime rate of less than 1%.

“That goes back to good law enforcement, the Smithville Police Department, Chief Hathcock and his staff do a wonderful job. Of course, we get some calls in that area, but we don’t have the crime in the Smithville area and the north part of the county, as we do in other parts of the county.”

A little more than 600 people call Smithville home, but they aren’t the only ones rolling in and out-of-town.

“Highway 25 is a very busy highway and it runs right down through the middle of Smithville. So you might think it is a small town, but you have a lot of visitors, and a lot of people that live in Smithville, a lot of good people that live there.”

It’s those “good people” who help keep an eye out for each other.

“We are proud of all of our employees, our police department, and all of our citizens here. They all work together to help keep crime rate down and we all try to work together with everyone and we’re always looking to make sure our neighbors are good,” says Mayor Earl Wayne Cowley.

Smithville Assistant Police Chief Eric Mills grew up in this town and has been with the department going on fifteen years.

He said officers are always working to keep the rate down, and a good relationship with the community helps.

“Everybody in town, knows just about every officer that works here at the police department, and if they see something, a lot of times, they call us on the phone instead of calling 911, so and that makes them more comfortable about reporting a crime, than it would be to call 911, about where they might not be comfortable about doing so.”

Mills says the crime rate has been pretty steady over the years, but obviously some crime has to make up that less than 1%.

“We have a little drugs here and there, just like any other place, but with it being a small town, we pretty much know who’s doing the drugs, so we can kind of stay on top of it and try to keep it at a minimum, of course, you’ll never get all of it, because you arrest one, you’ve got two picking up.”

The Smithville Police Department has less than ten officers on staff.