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Southern Oregon 乡村的晚上，武装的公民组织起来，轮流开着有黄色闪灯车在地区巡逻。他们希望通过巡逻，抑制犯罪。他们说，他们自己并非在执法，而是做执法机关的耳目。碰到可疑，会报告警方。但是如果警方（因为经费或者特小的事情）不来，他们就会自己动手，比如帮着clear residence。警方是支持这些人的，尤其是一些相当远的一些地区。
当地因为经济和经费问题，治安并不怎么样。因为有几起大的盗窃案，这帮武装的公民开始组织巡逻。据他们自己说，从此还没有发生过一起新的案子。
负责训练的是退休的副警长（如同我们的地区联谊里面的很多军分区一样，比如 第二期枪友预备役培训）
他们通过自己的存在来为武装的公民挣了脸，这也许实际上起到了hci所说的“让大家见惯不惊，不但见惯，还要和美好回忆联系起来”这种效果吧。
Rural counties in southern Oregon are suffering from the loss of the federal timber money that used to be the mainstay of county government budgets.
After repeated failed efforts to get residents to approve tax increases, officials in Josephine County made dramatic cutbacks in county services, including law enforcement.
In response, a growing number of armed citizen groups are cropping up to fill that public safety vacuum.
It’s after 10 p.m. as Sam Nichols and Alan Cress slowly cruise through the tiny town of O’Brien, shining super-bright spotlights into the shadows.
Nichols said, “We’re just checking this commercial building here, just to make sure there’s no one hiding around it or anything.”
Nichols’ king cab pickup has a yellow flasher on top and signs on the doors identifying it as a Citizens Against Crime patrol.
He explained, “We’re trying to be proactive. We’re trying to show the bad guys that we’re out there in force, and they better watch out.”
Alan Cress says the nightly armed patrols are meant to be an extra set of eyes and ears to deter criminal activity.
He said, “We’re not trying to play cops and robbers or take the place of law enforcement. In fact, we have a great deal of respect for what law enforcement does. We recognize the limited resources they have and we’re just trying to keep a presence out there.”
You might think, out in the country like this, there’s not much crime to speak of. But high unemployment and a growing drug problem – plus the sudden lack of law enforcement – has fed a growth in burglaries, vehicle thefts and other property crimes. Nichols says the patrols have made a difference in O’Brien.
Nichols explained, “There were five major thefts – travel trailers, automobiles. tractors, this sort of thing – before we started patrolling. Since we started patrolling, there hasn’t been a single one.”
For decades, revenue from timber sales on the federal land that makes up 70 percent of Josephine County kept property taxes low and the county government functioning. As logging dramatically declined, those payments dried up. Things came to a head in 2012, says Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson.
Gilbertson said, “We went from a $12 million budget to a $5.2 million budget … We reduced our workforce from, I think we had 98 down to 34, so 65 percent of our personnel were laid off.”
At one point, Gilbertson was forced to release dozens of inmates from the county jail as he downsized to meet reduced staffing levels. He was left with a single deputy to patrol the entire county. Police officers in Grants Pass, the county seat, had no choice but to cut petty criminals loose because there was nowhere to put them.
Ken Selig lives in the small town of Merlin. Until May, 2012, Selig was a 33-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department. Faced with being laid off, Selig retired. But he says it quickly became obvious that the cutbacks had left a vacuum in which criminals grew bolder.
Selig said, “Right now, the only thing the Sheriff’s Office provides, really, is if you have a life-threatening situation, they will come out.”
He points to an incident where an elderly neighbor came home to find her door forced open. When she called the Sheriff’s Department, she was told that unless she was sure there was someone still in the house, no one would respond. Selig and former reserve deputy Pete Scaglione gathered other concerned neighbors and formed the North Valley Community Watch.
Selig explained,”So we began to train. And I used the same lesson plans, the same things that when I taught at the academy.”
On a weekday evening, Selig stands before a classroom whiteboard in a civic building in Merlin. He’s preparing members of the North Valley Community Watch Responder Team for a training exercise. They’re going to practice how to approach and clear a building where an intruder may be hiding. After making certain their side arms are unloaded, the group breaks down into small teams to search the building. Guns drawn, team members cautiously maneuver down the hallway, learning to move as a coordinated unit.
Selig says the group limits itself to doing what the Sheriff’s Department no longer does. He said,”We go and we clear homes and businesses. We respond to trespassers. We respond to suspicious people in the neighborhood. And we create a presence there.”
The group also maintains a website and Facebook page, where locals report thefts or sightings of suspicious activity.
There are at least two other communities in the county with similar citizen safety groups, one in Cave Junction and another south of Grants Pass. Sheriff Gil Gilbertson says he supports neighborhood watch groups, and that citizen involvement is crucial, especially in remote rural areas. But he worries things could get out of hand. He recalls a community meeting he attended …
Gilbertson said, “And the gentleman sitting right next to me kept repeating, we’re not going to hire any more of you guys, we’re not going to pay for you because we can do this for ourselves. Well, that really concerns me, that does concern me.”
Next month, Josephine County voters will have another chance to approve a property tax hike to restore the public safety budget. Two previous levies have failed.
But member of the citizen groups in both Merlin and O’Brien say they’ve found a new sense of civic involvement and self-reliance.
And even if the Sheriff’s Department returns to full funding, they say, they’ll continue protecting their communities.
http://www.opb.org/news/article/ ... w-enforcement-gaps/
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发表于 2014-5-9 17:32
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发表于 2014-5-9 18:49