Sean C. Morgan
The number of warrants issued by Sweet Home Municipal Court has rapidly increased over the past five years and the question is why.
The answer, according to Municipal Court Judge Larry Blake, may be due to Sweet Home’s economic condition.
In 2011, the Sweet Home Municipal Court issued 138 warrants. In 2012, it issued 202; 318 in 2013; and 580 in 2014. Finally, in 2015, the court issued 671 warrants.
In addition to those Municipal Court warrants, Sweet Home police also commonly make arrests based on Lebanon Municipal Court warrants, Linn County Circuit Court warrants and Lebanon Justice Court warrants. The same general pattern has held true for those as well.
Sweet Home police arrested suspects on 395 warrants in 2012. In 2013, they arrested suspects on 511 warrants. In 2014, the number of warrants increased to 802. Last year, they arrested suspects on 957 warrants.
Last year, Sweet Home Police Department had 319 arrests that included a warrant from another agency, and 260 Sweet Home warrants were cleared by other law enforcement agencies.
Overall, the number of crimes that underlie the warrants have been relatively consistent, said Police Chief Jeff Lynn.
In several areas, the number of crimes reported decreased in 2015, contrasting the increasing number of warrant arrests.
City Finance Director Pat Gray, who oversees Municipal Court administration, said that the rising number of warrants issued really reflects the growing number of people who do not comply with judgments or who do not show up to court. Lynn agreed.
“We have noticed an uptick in warrants in the last few years,” he said. “I think some of it reflects what Pat said. People just aren’t going to court.”
Blake said one cause is simply follow-through by the court.
“The reason for the uptick (is that it’s) one of the things the court can effectively do,” he said. “What we’re doing is reviewing the files and making sure people are doing what they’re supposed to do.”
If a defendant owes the court money and doesn’t pay, is required to get treatment or an evaluation and doesn’t or doesn’t complete community service, the court will send a letter to the defendant’s last known address to “show cause,” Blake said. “Show cause” means the defendant must appear in court to explain to the judge why the defendant is not in contempt of court. Defendants are required to report address changes to the court.
If they respond to the letter and appear in court, Blake said, then the court may grant them more time to comply.
If defendants don’t appear in court, the court issues a failure to appear warrant, which is a new, separate charge.
“I’m pretty flexible,” Blake said. He told the story of a woman who arrived at court a half hour late, and she paid just $9 of her $50 payment.
That satisfied Blake, he said.
“Showing some effort, anything at all, then I’ll work with people.”
Another man owed $30 to the court, but he lost $10 to a video poker machine, Blake said.
Blake got grouchy with him because he had money to play poker but not to meet his obligations.
Most typically, those arrested on warrants are cited and released. They are taken to the Police Department, where they are booked, which includes listing personal information, charges and fingerprinting on local charges, and then given a court date.
Some are “custody warrants,” most often in the case of Linn County Circuit Court warrants, and the subject is taken to Linn County Jail, where he or she will serve time for failure to comply or be held for court.
Police officers often transport prisoners to Linn County Jail on Linn County and Sweet Home warrants. When they have a subject in a Lebanon warrant, they will meet Lebanon police officers halfway between the two cities and transfer the prisoner to Lebanon. Albany warrants tend to be cite-and-release.
Whether police take a prisoner to Linn County Jail on a warrant also depends on whether the jail is full.
“We’re limited by the capacity of the jail too,” Blake said, which limits his options for dealing with defendants. Often, defendants taken to jail are immediately released because the jail doesn’t have enough beds. Transporting defendants to jail takes officers off the streets temporarily too, so Sweet Home warrants are typically cite and release.
Sometimes officers cite and release people with “in the field” on warrants.
That’s often left to the officer’s discretion, depending on his or her current call load, Lynn said. Police can also choose to cite and release, based on medical conditions that will be difficult for the department to deal with.
The impacts to the community don’t stop with the initial crime, Lynn said. In addition, there’s the continued cost associated with enforcing the warrants for those who won’t comply with judgments or who fail to appear in court. Processing the warrant can take 15 minutes to 2½ hours of officer time, depending on how the department handles the warrant.
“It takes an officer off the street,” Lynn said. “It limits their opportunity to be proactive.”
On the other hand, he said, it’s also part of the job enforcing the law, and when offenders are lodged outside of the community for a time, it’s helpful to the community.
Still, “how to gain compliance, that’s the question today,” Lynn said. “Maybe we need our own work crew. I don’t know if that’ll work. You still have to show up to work crew. I don’t know if there’s one solution.”
Sweet Home cut its work crew program nearly 20 years ago because of cost and liability, Gray said.
“Some say we just need to house them ourselves,” Lynn said, but that requires resources 24 hours per day seven days a week, and Sweet Home doesn’t have the manpower to even begin tackling something like that.
Currently, Sweet Home can hold a prisoner for up to 72 hours, Lynn said. During that time, officers must physically check on and feed prisoners regularly. The department has the staff to hold prisoners during the day, but it’s more challenging at night, when fewer officers are working.
Blake said cite-and-release warrants have an impact on some offenders. Others may not respond well to them, but some “figure out if I do what I’m supposed to do, I don’t have to come back to court,” the judge said.
The growing numbers “probably have to do with some economic situations in the city and county,” he said.
Blake is judge in six communities – the others are Philomath, Monroe, Happy Valley, Newberg and Manzanita. Of those, only Sweet Home is seeing this kind of growth in the number of warrants issues.
“Economically, this city has had the worst of it,” Blake said. “When I come to Sweet Home, I acknowledge that this city is different from any other city.”
But Sweet Home is not the only city experiencing this large growth in the number of warrants its court issues. While it hasn’t seen the same percentage of growth, Lebanon has more than doubled the number since 2011. Starting at a higher number of warrants per 1,000 population, Lebanon issued 1,110 warrants in 2011 and 2,445 in 2015.
Gray said that many of those named in the warrants tend to be “the same people getting their water turned off” for not paying their bills.
Blake recognizes this and his court frequently orders work crew and community service, he said.
“I’m all for community service. I think that’s a great way of paying back the community.”
That helps defendants to remain accountable, he said. When a convicted offender, sentenced to time on the Linn County Sheriff’s Office work crew, fails to show up for work crew, the county issues its own warrant for failure to comply.
Lynn said he’s “still trying to figure out what it means and how to move forward with” the rising number of warrants. He also has been looking at the individuals behind that data.
He said a small number of people are responsible for a disproportionate number of warrants. Among those he and others dub “frequent fliers,” 31 individuals were arrested five or more times in 2015. They accounted for 223 arrests in Sweet Home in 2015.
At the top of the list, a man was arrested 20 times on 31 warrants and 15 new charges, including eight counts of second-degree theft and seven counts of criminal trespass.
“It’s an interesting topic,” Lynn said. “I don’t think anybody has a true solution for it. The good is we’re continuing trying to hold people accountable. It’s what the intent is. You can’t just not do what the judge says.”
SIDEBAR: MULTIPLE REPEAT OFFENDERS POSE AN ‘ISSUE’ FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
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