PORT ANGELES – Clallam County Prosecutor Mark Nichols, appearing on KONP’s Todd Ortloff Show Monday, says crime is going up again in our community. In fact, it’s looking like the drop in crime during the pandemic may be over.
Here’s Nichols reporting on felony referrals from all law enforcement agencies in Clallam County.
“In 2021 we saw 586 referrals and in 2022, up through June 31st, we saw 358. And so, if you do some simple math, by the end of the year, that would project forward to about 716 referrals or so, which is up significantly from 2021. It’s a number more like we saw pre-pandemic.”
Nichols believes there are two main reasons major crimes may have gone down during the pandemic. He says there was a marked drop in property crime because more people were working from home, and drug possession crimes are down in general because of the State Supreme Court’s State vs. Blake decision.
“Which served to essentially gut our ability to deal with possession of controlled substance as a crime. That used to be something quite prevalent in common, in our community, that law enforcement did make arrests on. We can no longer do that. And law enforcement can no longer simply arrest when they find a person in possession of controlled substance. Instead, they’re required, twice over now, to refer that person for evaluation and treatment before they even have the ability to make an arrest for simple possession and send it or to our office for a misdemeanor level prosecution.”
So, with drug possession crimes way down because of the State vs. Blake decision, what’s gone up so much? Property crime. It appears people are going back to work again and crimes like burglary are on the rise.
Nichols is not in favor of giving people in possession of controlled substances a free pass and an offer to enroll in a substance abuse, or drug court, program. He feels that the program often worked better after an arrest and a night in jail.
“If they made it successfully, what we would expect to see was significantly reduced recidivism from them as they lived a life of recovery, which did not include stealing to support a habit. So, I think that we did make some difference. I know that for our worst drug offenders, they wound up being sent off to prison because they got in trouble so much, their criminal history score got so high, they were put behind bars. And from prison, they were not able to predate on the citizens of Clallam County when it came to stealing their property and breaking into the residences, for example.”