Oregon is now dead-last in the United States for per-capita police officer staffing, and Lane County is last in Oregon - making Lane County the least-policed county in the United States. Yep, we're behind such economic superpowers as Maine, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alabama. We're last - and it shows.

Not surprisingly, our crime rate is out of control. In fact, our property crime rate in Eugene is among the worst in the US. Two years ago Lane Countys car-theft rate was in the 94th percentile. That's bad enough, but it's worse today - it's in the 98th percentile. Our burglary rate is almost as bad, and the rate of violence is climbing dramatically. In 1995 the Lane County rate of child abuse was FAR below the national average; by 2002 the national child abuse rates had jumped up  considerably - but the Lane County rate was even worse. Now we're seeing dramatic increases in many violent crimes. Unfortunately, we've laid off so many of our public safety personell we don't have the capacity to deal with all the crime we already have.

Last summer the police who were called to investigate the double-murder near Oakridge had to come from Triangle Lake, because no deputies were closer! Obviously, by the time the deputies arrived the bad guy(s) were long-gone. A few months ago the Sheriff had to investigate a murder in Dexter with only a few detectives. They had to bring in the State Police and the marine patrol staff to assist - and it still wasn't enough. (The State Police patrol staffing has been cut in half over teh last 25 years too.) A few weeks ago there was another murder in Goshen. In that case there weren't enough police officers to secure the scene, so the weighmasters were brought in to secure the area! (In between those two murders there was another killing out at the Prairie Schooner just north of Beltline.) We're averaging about one killing per month, with many, many other crimes in between. In fact, the DA receives between 90 and 150 new criminal cases every week, and that's without including approximately 50 property crimes per week the Sheriff doesn't have the staff to even investigate.  If we ever started investigating all the crimes the system would be even farther behind.

Our DAs office has fewer DAs on staff than it did 25 years ago, when there were 60,000 fewer people in Lane County and thing like the present crime rate. Our DA's are unable to process all the crime, so 1200-1500 cases per year are not even reviewed for prosecution. The DA used to have 11 investigators on staff. Now there is only one. To make matters worse, the county is losing journeyman staff who are leaving to work elsewhere for much better money and better working conditions... The DA only has 22 Deputy DAs left in the Criminal Division...and teh office has replaced 19 lawyers since 2005. That kind of turnover rate is crippling in any organization.

Our jail was too small when it was built. Now it's less than a third of the size it needs to be to address our population and crime volume. Today, most inmates will be released before serving even 30% of the sentence ordered by the judge, and many will be released before serving 5% of their sentence in jail.

Approximately 30% of our criminals fail to appear for trial. Lane County issues approximately 900 arrest warrants every month - mostly to no avail, as there are few officers and there's no jail space, so the criminals are released again as soon as they're arrested, and many will just fail to appear again.

Our juvenile system is in similar collapse. They're forced to release very dangerous juveniles, including assaultive and sex-offending juveniles, every week.

Our probation and parole officers are similarly over-worked and under-equipped. The POs supervising the worst sex-offenders have over 100 offenders to supervise - when the national standard for the highest risk offenders is 30-50.

According to three investigations and surveys conducted over the last three years, Lane County public safety system is "grossly understaffed". The most recent analysis, conducted by Dr. Lattimore of the University of South Carolina, confirms our dire circumstance - and it's predicted to get worse.

Lane County has suffered lay-offs in 12 of the last 15 years. We're below 50% of average staffing in many areas, but more reductions are on the horizon, and the crime rate is going to continue to soar. And yet, our citizens don't really care.

We don't care. We just limp along and look the other way. Again. And again. Our tax burden is nowhere near as high as it is in many other areas of the country, and our crime rate is much, much worse than most, but we're not interested and we don't lift a finger to make the community safer. Why don't we care? How many burglaries, rapes and murders do we need before people will think it's worth making the jump up to "average" staffing? How could a place this nice and this blessed become so dangerous and so neglected?

Uh.....sounds like you did a lot of research........so what do we do about it?

babyk:

Uh.....sounds like you did a lot of research........so what do we do about it?

Well, if we were anywhere but Eugene, the answer to that question would be obvious. That's the root of the problem; people here just don't sem to care about the more mundane "nuts and bolts" of caring for a community. We'll rally for parks, we'll protest additives in food, we'll parade for the rights of trans-gendered-moon-walkers-with purple-hair, but we can't be bothered to do anything to stem the tide of one of the nation's worst crime problems. Crime has been getting worse for many years - and we keep laying off more police, DAs, POs, juvenile corrections staff and treatment providers. One of the county commissioners recently said, "When we discussed the possibility of having to reduce funding for LCARA we received many complaining phone calls, but when we talked about closing 119 beds in the Lane County jail not a single citized called in." Yes animals are terribly important, and they should be protected too, but Eugene has to be the only crime-ridden community in the US in which the animal problems attract more attention than the people problems.

Many explain our failure to act as a reflection of our distrust of government. I don't doubt the distrust, but prudent, concerned citizens would investigate the rising crime problem and make their own determinations. We just ignore it or deny it. The solution is never ignorance and apathy, but that's been our collective choice for two decades. We're apparently content to watch our community devolve into chaos with a crime rate that is worse that almost all of the communities our size in the USA.

Let's see...  If somebody made me king, I'd add police, DAs, POs, treatment providers, including juvenile treatment and corrections staff. I'd support prevention, because it helps and it's cheap, and I'd improve the drug treatment programs so we were providing access to the most effective treatment available. No, I'm not happy about having to pay for dope-addicts to get treatment. Yes, people "should" take care of their own kids. So what? I don't like paying to have people pick up garbage on the side of the road either: I support paying for garbage collection because it's better that the only alternative of leaving the mess on the road. Drug treatment is expensive, but it's cheaper than re-aresting and re-housing every criminal drug addict. It just makes sense to do what we can to get the dopers on the right track.

It's not a complicated plan. It's been used with success in many jurisdictions in the USA - but folks in Eugene think differently. Maybe wider sidewalks is the solution?

Teamplayer:

babyk:

Uh.....sounds like you did a lot of research........so what do we do about it?

Let's see...  If somebody made me king, I'd add police, DAs, POs, treatment providers, including juvenile treatment and corrections staff. I'd support prevention, because it helps and it's cheap, and I'd improve the drug treatment programs so we were providing access to the most effective treatment available. No, I'm not happy about having to pay for dope-addicts to get treatment. Yes, people "should" take care of their own kids. So what? I don't like paying to have people pick up garbage on the side of the road either: I support paying for garbage collection because it's better that the only alternative of leaving the mess on the road. Drug treatment is expensive, but it's cheaper than re-aresting and re-housing every criminal drug addict. It just makes sense to do what we can to get the dopers on the right track.

It's not a complicated plan. It's been used with success in many jurisdictions in the USA - but folks in Eugene think differently. Maybe wider sidewalks is the solution?

 

I agree completely. I would vote for you if you ran for King.

I have lived all over America, and I have seen the proof of the old concepts of Liberal and Conservative. Liberals tend to "TALK" big on "public morality" (save the whales, world peace, save the trees) while conservatives "TALK" big on "personal morality" (save marriage, save the family, etc.).

In the places I have lived where conservatives dominate, there seemed to be a much larger view that Law Enforcement was seen as a "guardian" to the people, where in liberal areas it is seen as an oppressor. Of course it isn't an extreme view, or common to everyone, but it is a trend.

Eugene seems to be in a cycle that will see law enforcement choked away by public apathy until crime becomes outrageous, then we will likely see a public outcry of incompetence and anger at law enforcement. Then we will get a crackdown, with reactive government action to correct it in the face of the media and the public's 20/20 hindsight criticizm.

It will come in cycles, but I feel sad already for the kids and families who will have to be sacrificed before the public concern is raised.

 

I certainly must agree that, in Liberal areas, the police are veiwed as oppressors, and this, I think, is the primary reason for our sad state of affairs with public safety.

A negative public perception of Law Enforcement is also driven, lately, by the seat belt law and the ads threatening the populace with them.  These ads establish the police as watchful enemies eager to "shake down" soccer moms on the way to pick up the kids or the student trying to drive to class.  I am convinced that every ad and every seat belt fine written deepens the popular unwillingness to support public safety. 

---

An ascendant man, living in a degenerate age, MUST, by definition, live in contradistinction to his times.

I don't disagree with you, Badgerrr, but I think three cops shooting a 19year-old dead, and two cops in prison for sex abuse crimes probably had something to do with it too.  I for abhor the unrelenting billboard threats that line 99 from downtown north.  But, frankly, I think the answer to this thread's question is simple, we're afraid we might have to slow down, we might have to stop at red lights and for pedestrians, we might get a lot more tickets.  And lets not bash liberals too much on this issue. They are not the problem; we all are. Conservatives have overwhelmingly voted against law enforcement.  Seems the dollar is way too holy for them. 

"...cops shooting a 19year-old dead, and two cops in prison for sex abuse crimes probably had something to do with it too...."

Yeah, stuff like that doesn't help a whole lot either.  But methinks this speaks to a larger issue that is GENERALLY true most everywhere.  That issue is that Police Departments attract 2 different kinds of people as recruits.

  One kind is well defined as "Springfields" Finest (chose whatever town).  These guys wanna be the avenger in the white hat.  They want a job that makes a difference and makes the world a better place in which to live.  They are intelligent, responsible, and the kinda guys you'd like to know.

  The OTHER kind is the kinda guy who really admires a cops ability to push other people around and get away with it.  They wanna be big shots.  They are cruel little people, with cruel little minds,  who...if they do not become cops....will usually become criminals (or a different variation of Loser)

---

An ascendant man, living in a degenerate age, MUST, by definition, live in contradistinction to his times.

You're right. Unfortunately all of them wind up in their own little culture.  I took a course many many years ago called "Otherness in Literature"  We read Black LikeMe, Frankenstein and a few other books focusing on being other than normal or forced to be outside the mainstream of culture.  The police fall into that realm.  We treat them as "other" than us.  Is it any wonder they feel defensive, alienated, unwanted?  Then we ask them to take risks we wouldn't ask soldiers to do in war and raise a holy name-calling stink when we don't like how they handle things.  Now that we've become afraid of them, maybe we're just thinking if we don't fund them they'll go away. 

Yet, again and again people vote down any tax measure that will attempt to bring in funding for our safety.  No one is willing to fork over the money to pay for it.

EITHER WAY, WE ARE GOING TO PAY!  I would happily give more money to prosecute and hold the criminals accountable.  I'm afraid the cost of NOT DOING ANYTHING is going to cost us our homes, our belongings, our family, our schools, our kids, our parents....  In one way or another, we will end up paying for this.  We see it in repairs we have to make for vadalism.  Dr. appointments and medical treatment for violence.  Therapy and life long scaring when people are raped.  Insurance premiums when you are considered too "high risk" because of claims - to the point where you just can't afford to have it at all.  Children today need to be loved more, taught more, held more, read to more.  We need to require them to be respectful to others and we have an obligation to them to make sure they don't have some insane sense of entitlement when they grow up.  Why don't people give a damn about others these days?  

I think the community needs to wake up, look around, learn the facts and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  It takes money.  That's obvious.  If we aren't willing to pay with dollars, we need to be prepared to pay with things that are much more valuable.   

Just more scare tactics here from our local government officials.   Don't believe this FALSE data!

This is the same old stuff they tried to pass off before:  Crime out of control, and we have the worst public safety in the nation.  This is all untrue.   Crime is not out of control.

The same is true about the false statements regarding our tax rates.  Oregon has the 3rd highest state income tax rate in the entire nation!  Every year our property taxes go up 3%

The fact is that Lane County is now the ONLY County in the state of Oregon with a personal income tax.   This now makes our county the highest taxed county in the state!

It is high time that our public officials start caring about the welfare of the people, instead of always inflating and growing the county's budget.  County Commissioner Bill Dwyer has explained the problem many times.  Every year, the county's budget grows by a whopping 6%.   Yet Property Taxes are limited to only increasing a max of 3% a year.

So what does this mean?   It means that each and every year, the county has to seek more and more taxes, to pay for this increase.  It is absolutely outrageous that the County Commissioners made NOT EFFORT WHATSOEVER to try to control these increasing costs that the county is taking on.  Unless the system changes, they will have to keep coming back and back to us, for yet more and more tax increases.

But the fact is that our local economy is so very weak, that it cannot affored this increasing level of taxation.   Tell me, how many of you got a 6% increase in your wages this past year?  How many of you got NO wage increase whatsoever??   Our economy is NOT growing at 6%, and thus these ever increasing taxes mean that we will end up with less and less money for ourselves and our family.

Utility costs have had huge increases lately, sometimes into double digit percentage increases.  Gas has skyrocketed, and inflation in general is way up.   Have you checked the price of food?  People don't have enough money as it is, to make ends meet.  Our economy is currently so bad off, that our national savings rate is now NEGATIVE.  In other words, people are actually spending more money than what they are making, in order to get by.   The average credit card debt has triple to $9,000 in recent years.

And you want other gauges on how well people are off now?   Just look at the housing market right now, with so many homes for sale, and so few selling?   Or go to your local car dealer, and you will find that even Toyota and Honda have a glut of cars that they are having a hard time selling.   And the American car companies are all near bankruptcy.

Just how is it that every other county in Oregon has been able to get by without having an income tax?   What is so special or different about Lane County that requires us to have the highest taxation in the state?   Well, you can sum it up with this:  incompetence by our county leaders.

It is time for the people to get tough with the County Commissioners.   Let's not only sign petitions to put this income tax to a vote, but let's also recall the Commissioners that voted for it.  Fleenor and Sorensen are the only honest commissioners we have left, who are still representing the will of the people, and looking out for us.

So don't believe this.  If you do, then you probably believed everything Bush told us about how we needed to invade Iraq.   This case is just as deceitful and untrue.

Lance in Springfield

Country Gardener:

I don't disagree with you, Badgerrr, but I think three cops shooting a 19year-old dead, and two cops in prison for sex abuse crimes probably had something to do with it too.  I for abhor the unrelenting billboard threats that line 99 from downtown north.  But, frankly, I think the answer to this thread's question is simple, we're afraid we might have to slow down, we might have to stop at red lights and for pedestrians, we might get a lot more tickets.  And lets not bash liberals too much on this issue. They are not the problem; we all are. Conservatives have overwhelmingly voted against law enforcement.  Seems the dollar is way too holy for them. 

The two cops in prison for sex abuse crimes (Magana & Lara) should have been sentenced more severely. And neither should have been hired to meet quotas in the first place, as both had prior history that made them poor candidates for law enforcement. The good news is that was a situtation in which the story came to light because Eugene Police brought it to light - they policed themselves and cut out the bad guys, though they never got any real credit for that.

As to the young man who was shot by one officer, it was a terrible tragedy, but most people who became familiar with the facts, including the boy's lawyer-father, family and friends, recognized that the police had no viable choice under the circumstances, a reality later confirmed by the DA. The details of the shooting were provided in exaustive-detail in a report eventually released by the Register Guard. What a sad story...

Incidents like the Magana/Lara cases happen elsewhere. LA had the Rodney King case. New York had the awful abuse of the African citizen, etc. Cops, like all other people, come in good and bad. In Eugene only the bad are recognized. It seems to be part of our cultural imperative here, and we indulge it without restraint.  It's a shame, I think, because it's a prejudice as inaccurate and unfair as any other.

Sorry, Lance, but you're wrong on your facts. Not even close.

First, with the exception of the 3% and 6% cost differentials, all of your numbers are wrong. The income tax would not make Lane County “the most heavily taxed county”, nor is a county income tax new to Oregon. (Multnomah County implemented a similar tax under a slightly different label, but the net impact was the same). More importantly, Lane County has the lowest property tax rate in the state at $1.28 per $1,000 of assessed property value. It’s lower than the rate for the Coburg rural fire protection district for goodness sakes. In contrast, some Portland metro counties are at or over $4 per $1,000, and the state average is well over $3 per $1,000. Lane is at the bottom because the commissioners didn't raise the rates in the 70s and 80s when they had the authority to do so (because they had adequate timber revenue). By the time the timber money went away it was too late to raise the tax rates, as ballot measures 5, 47 and 50 had eliminated their authority to do so, and the local cities, especially Eugene, had aggressively increased rates and shifted the tax balance. The City of Eugene gets $7.30 per $1,000 of assessed value - and the city has all the most valuable, non-tax-deferred property. The net result is that Lane County has to collect the taxes for everybody, but it gets only 9 cents of every property tax dollar. The rest goes to cities, schools and special levies.

You're also completely wrong about the crime trends. Lane County's crime numbers are WAY up in most (not all) categories, a fact born out in several recent independent reports including the most recent report from the PSCC (Public Safety Safety Coordinating Council), and an independent analysis of Dr. Pamela Lattimore of the University of South Carolina, a leading expert on law enforcement and corrections staffing. The data are also consistent with the published FBI data, though the definitions have to be corrected to match Oregon crime names. Lastly, they're independently verifiable through both the published call volumes of the local dispatch systems and the OJIN numbers (Oregon Judicial system). Not all crimes are up, but the Lane County car theft rate was in the 95th percentile in the USA two years ago and is now in the 98th percentile (for communities between 100,000 and 1,000,000 citizens). The residential burglary rates are similarly appalling. Oregon's child abuse rate was 40% below the national average in 1996; by 2001 it was above the national average. It's grim. Let's not forget the murder rate. I don't have a list, but I can remember several in the last year: there was the old man killed by the career criminal at the Prairie Schooner; the guy who was murdered in Dexter; the guy who broke in and executed his young estranged wife in Eugene (recently in paper); the elderly woman who was killed in her home by the drifter in downtown Eugene; the young woman who was shot and killed in her pickup in Goshen and, most recently, the body found dead in the burned apartment in downtown Eugene. That's just the ones I can remember in the last year near Eugene! And who could forget the nice couple killed while camping near Oakridge the summer before last - still unsolved because the Sheriff's office has no staff to work it. (The Sheriff testified that the closest deputies to respond to that murder came from Triangle Lake!) (No CSI here. During the Goshen murder last spring the Sheriff had to rely on unarmed weigh-masters (truck inspectors) to provide scene security, as there were no other officers available - for a murder investigation, their third in as many months. Sorry, but that's just ridiculous.

Now the police agencies are arresting the occasional California gang members in our area – no doubt happy to find a poorly policed, target-rich environment in which to work – without having to worry about California’s tough “three strikes” laws. According to the DA, “Oregon doesn’t even have a twenty-strikes law.”

Our record low per capita police staffing is exacerbated by the legislature’s choice to gut the Oregon State Police. According to Lt. Mike Bloom of the Oregon State Police, there are 26 state troopers currently assigned in Lane County. In 1982, when the county population was 20% lower, there were 76 troopers assigned here.

You're wrong about county efforts to mitigate costs too. Actually, the county has done MUCH better  than other Oregon government in many ways. First, it has the largest line-worker to supervisor ratio in the state at almost 13 to 1.  In contrast, the Oregon government average is approximately 7 to 1, the private sector optimum (granted, different jobs) is approximately 10 to 1 - and the City of Eugene is closer to 5 to 1.

Then there's the fact that the County joined the City of Eugene in initiating a lawsuit against PERS. The lawsuit was successful and resulted in legislation which  gutted the PERS retirement system. The new PERS retirement, in effect since January 2004, is a simple retirement system with a 6% contribution into a savings and investment plan with no guarantees and no government match.

I also watched the presentation during which the commissioners were told about several departments losing staff and being unable to fill positions in nursing, IT, engineering and the DA's office because salaries were so far below market. The commissioners ordered a salary analysis by a private sector firm out-of state. The firm concluded that most county professionals and managers were between 15% and 55% below government market averages. When the private sector salaries were added in, the differential for the doctors, lawyers, nurses, IT folks and engineers was as much as 300% in some cases, so the commissioners did not allow those numbers to be included in the analysis. When the data came in, Commissioners Green and Dwyer said something like, "We can't afford to compete for these people at market rates...we wish them well in their future employment".

The commissioners have gutted management, sued to reduce PERS costs, and reduced the salaries of non-represented employees to the point where they are well below government averages, farther out of true market ranges, and to the point where departments have expensive training and overtime costs (because turnover is very high and positions are hard to fill). The DA testified that he's down to only 22 lawyer positions in the criminal division - and he's hired 20 lawyers since 2000. With that kind of turnover, he's replacing almost 15% of his DAs every year, so senior lawyers are constantly training new ones instead of spending all their time on their own cases - a very expensive way to do business, "especially when the lawyers immediately leave to go to another DA's office for a 15% raise and a 30% reduction in caseload". (The Lane County DAs have the highest caseloads in the state according to the OJIN filing data divided by FTE. Their per DA case numbers are 16% higher than the next closest county - Marion - and 65% higher than the average.)

According to Rob Rockstroh, the Health and Human Services Director for the county, the same thing is going on with nurses. He can't hire them and, when he does, they have to start at or near the top step. Even with that they regularly bail out to take private sector jobs with better hours for much better compensation.

I disagree with your other assumptions too. Do you think the national problems with credit card debt and negative savings are driven primarily by people trying to meet minimum needs? Not if the sales of digital cameras, big-screen TVs, Starbucks coffee, or cell phones are any indicator. In fact, it was a BOOMING Christmas season... Yes, many people are struggling, especially in Lane County where we have foolishly killed the timber industry (though we have more standing timber than we had in 1895) and other sources of family wage jobs, but we can't lay the credit and savings problem there. That has MUCH more to do with the modern "instant gratification" culture and a lack of appreciation for the need to save. I hire young people regularly, and have for years, and I've noticed a BIG change in attitude over the last ten years. The new twenty-somethings couldn't be less interested in our retirement plan. They want all compensation in cash - now - and they're driving nice cars, with nice stereos, and toting unessential goodies we never needed before. They expect to own things and do things nobody in the previous generation could afford at their age.

And another thing, I have NO IDEA where you get your facts about Toyota. It's definitely not the Wall Street Journal. Toyota is selling the heck out of their vehicles! The last three years have been the best EVER, with explosive and increasing sales. It's on the verge of eclipsing GM as the world's largest auto manufacturer. Heck, we had to buy another work truck near the end of the year and we had a heck of a time finding a suitable Toyota Tundra. We wanted an "Access Cab" but, even with the locator, we couldn't find one. We finally had to settle for a double cab - and they were hard to find too...

Shut up, you know nothing about crime. I came from California where you have sheriffs helicopters flying over your hours at all hours of the day and night looking for gang members that have ether killed, raped, robbed, or stolen from someone, and guess what they come into your back yard, trying to brake into your house to hide, and if your lucky they don’t kill you.

Nice attitude.  Sounds like your all about being part of the solution.... 

anti tax hog:

Shut up, you know nothing about crime. I came from California where you have sheriffs helicopters flying over your hours at all hours of the day and night looking for gang members that have ether killed, raped, robbed, or stolen from someone, and guess what they come into your back yard, trying to brake into your house to hide, and if your lucky they don’t kill you.

Actually, since I'm fluent in statistical analysis, and I've taken the time to collect the data, attend the hearings and presentations, and read the reports, including the reviews from the PSCC and Dr. Lattimore, I know a lot about local crime. That's one of the differences between you and me.

As it turns out, you're not the only one coming up from California. The California gangs are here  too - and why not? We have few cops, fewer DAs, a broken 30 year old jail we can't staff, and a felony sentencing structure that provides for NO three strikes laws and average felony sentence lengths that are less than 17% of the national average.

We've had several recent drive-buy shootings in Eugene/Springfield, and several recent unsolved murders. It's not uncommon to have as many as 30 cars stolen in a single weekend. The percapita incidence of rape in Lane County is now higher than San Franscisco, New York, Philadelphia, and a number of other large US metro areas. No, it's not as crime-ridden as the South Bronx or Watts, but it's not middle-America anymore either. Heck, the property crime rate is now worse than approximately 95% of other US communities below 1,000,000 citizens. That's horrendous.

We're not trying to compete with that sh!t-hole you left...we're trying to avoid turning into it, in spite of the fact that we seem to be importing all of the worst influences.