OPINION: More changes needed to address juvenile, violent crime

Two legislative sessions have now passed since we convened a statewide law enforcement summit to highlight our top priorities for addressing the state’s ongoing public safety crisis and while we appreciate the progress the Legislature has made in addressing some of our concerns, it is clear that much more needs to be done to improve the lives of citizens we are sworn to protect and serve.

First, we applaud the Legislature’s commitment to reforming the Children Youth and Families Department by finally bringing much needed accountability and oversight to that failed agency. New Mexico has some of the highest rates of abused and neglected kids in the country and that is directly contributing to our public safety crisis, especially the alarming increase in violent juvenile offenses. Research shows that “90% of juvenile offenders in the United States [have experienced] some sort of traumatic event in childhood, and up to 30% of justice-involved American youth … meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder due to trauma experienced during childhood.” In short, every child the state fails to protect only increases the risk to our community over the long run.

We also support the Legislature’s renewed commitment to addressing New Mexico’s broken behavioral health system. Too often police and prosecutors are looking for ways to get low level offenders into treatment before their conduct escalates and puts our communities at risk. Consequently, we believe that expanding behavioral health services is essential for improving public safety.

However, while improving CYFD and the behavioral health system are necessary for reducing crime rates over the long term, these steps by themselves are insufficient to address our state’s crime crisis. In order to do that, the Legislature must prioritize greater accountability for violent offenders and finally address New Mexico’s broken pretrial detention system.

Unfortunately, opponents to these essential reforms, both of which enjoy broad public support, rely on “data” to show low recidivism rates for released offenders and a low clearance rate for police officers. If given the opportunity to address these arguments in a legislative process that was actually committed to genuine inquiry, we would point out that just because a defendant has not been arrested for a new crime while released pending trial does not mean he has not committed a new crime. It simply means he has not been arrested. Second, while low arrest and clearance rates are issues of serious concern, they are also directly related to our inability to consistently compete with surrounding states for qualified officers.

While we recognize and appreciate the Legislature’s previous attempts to support recruitment and retention, those programs are simply insufficient to address the issue. The reality is that the annual median wage for police officers, adjusted for the cost of living, is $75,614 in Arizona, $76,162 in Texas, and $87,195 in Colorado. In New Mexico, it is $69,524. This disparity, combined with retirement rules that unnecessarily impede the retention of our most qualified officers, places us at a comparative disadvantage with surrounding states. Across the state, police departments are down hundreds of officers, and without stronger retire-and-rehire policies, we continue to lose law enforcement leaders and highly skilled instructors who retire and take their expertise to other states —all while having benefited from New Mexico’s training and resources.

As the recent events in Las Cruces make tragically clear, the visible presence of police officers in the community is the single most important factor in deterring criminal activity. While we will continue to advocate for common-sense reforms in our sentencing and detention frameworks, we also believe that using New Mexico’s historic surplus to recruit, train and equip a sufficient number of police officers is perhaps the single most important step in addressing our state’s ongoing crime crisis. We certainly have the money to address the issue, what we need now is the political will to get it done.