City of Warren police are noticing changes in their scope of work during the COVID-19 crisis.

“Call volume has been down a little bit,” Police Chief Brandon Deppen told Warren County Council. “Some of the calls have changed in nature. (We) have seen a decrease in the amount of traffic and the amount of crashes.”

Deppen indicated that it does appear that “most people” are complying with the governor’s mitigation efforts and “are following those recommendations.”

He said they “have struggled with getting accurate information on how to enforce some of those orders. The flow of information from the governor’s office has not been good to” law enforcement agencies.

Deppen said that because the stay-at-home order was implemented mid-month that there is a lag time in the reporting but indicated a rise in domestic violence situations.

“(We) are seeing an increase in those domestics,” he said.

On the flip side, he noted that child abuse calls are “drastically low” and suggested that some are likely going unreported and that many of the “typical reporting agencies” — such as schools and other entities that employ mandated reporters — are not seeing those children.

He said that once the mitigation restrictions are lifted, the department “would probably be inundated with them,” though he noted that the department is not typically made aware of the identity of the reporter.