I got the biggest kick out of that. That was rural thinking right there. See a problem, solve it. No use of deadly force needed, just get your horse out of the trailer and rope the dude. That was over in Jackson county 35 miles east. In this county (Josephine), other than in the city of Grants Pass, we are our own law enforcement sort of. There is almost a complete shut down of the Sherrif's department and maybe two deputies for the whole county. Many county rural residents have the moto: "We don't call 911" while displaying firearms. A lot have gone through the 'shoot now, let the judge sort it out later' thing after defending their home and property. Contrary to the scare tactics used each time the county tries again to get an exorbitant tax for law enforcement passed, it has not been as crime ridden and chaotic as feared. Crime is worse in the cities where there are city cops and lots of law enforcement while the same as it's always been out in the county.
I'm a terrible liberal because I'm a fan of this sort of relationship with law enforcement & the public. Then again, my political tests show me as an anarcho-socialist or libertarian-socialist.
Well, if you're saying crime is worse in the cities because there are more cops I'm not sure I agree, but I think I get your point.
"Contrary to the scare tactics used each time the county tries again to get an exorbitant tax for law enforcement passed, it has not been as crime ridden and chaotic as feared." What my focus was, is that county law enforcement tries to paint the country areas as escalating in crime (scare tactics) to get a huge tax passed that voters vote down. In reality, it isn't any worse than it ever has been. The county is super irresponsible with tax dollars and waste a big chunk of them with most of the waste in the sheriff's dept. The voters know this. For instance, I see just as many deputies on patrol now as I saw when they were fully funded. There were 30 deputies in the 80's-90's and now there are 2. They were ineffective when they had a fully funded department so the taxpayer pulled the plug. Unfortunately, this created an anti-property tax chain reaction and the other areas of county government get screwed in the process.
Yeah, that's too bad. That sorta kinda reminds me of one of our little counties around here that has a sheriff's dept with < 10 employees, including a clerk or two and a couple jailers. A few years ago it got out the the sheriff, a young ex-military dude, spent $800 each on new badges for all the officers, an utter waste. The next election people remembered. I used to support law-enforcement sales taxes around here but not any more. The county where I live built one of those cash-cow jails.
Our problems started with one of those "cash cow jails/prison". The county jail used to be in the basement of the courthouse. Instead of building just another jailhouse, the sheriff pushed for a mega prison style jail. The hope was to rent bed space to the state and other counties. In essence, become a jail-for-hire. It didn't work, the economy tanked and it cost more in personnel and cash to operate than this poor county could afford. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/41033 left: adult jail, right: juvenile jail
Every county thinks that but they don't realize at some point every other county has the same jail and it all becomes a big circle-jerk daisy-chain and then the only way to pay for it is charging prisoners' families $5 a minute collect calls, $3 rolls of toilet paper, increased fees and court costs that most of these people can't pay, etc. etc. Part of the cause of crime is that poor people think the system is stacked against them, and in this instance, they're right. Oh yeah, the county next door built one of these jails and it took forever. Only when it came time to open the damned thing did they realize they needed almost 3x what they thought was the estimated staff. It finally dawned on them the prisoners don't go home at 5:00pm and show back up the next morning at 9:00, that they needed three shifts and the money to pay the wages. Next-- where did you bury the hacksaw blade, wiskas? Hmmmmmm?
