PROSECUTIONS ON THE RISE, BUT WHY?

t's no secret that crime rates have increased over the years in Utah
County, and with that in mind, few Happy Valley residents would be
surprised to learn that felony prosecutions are on the rise as well.
But since the turn of the century, the Utah County Attorney's Office
has been busier than most people would probably guess, and the numbers
have left a lot of people scratching their heads.

Utah County's population has risen steadily since 2000, and crime
rates have risen along with it. But the number of felony cases filed
by the county attorney's office has left other statistics in the dust,
rising at twice the rate of the county's rapidly growing population.
Felonies include serious crimes such as burglary, robbery, murder and
rape.

Between 2001 and 2006, Utah County's population grew by an average of
5.5 percent each year, according to statistics compiled by the Utah
County Public Defender Association. In contrast, the number of felony
cases filed by the county attorney's office has increased by an annual
average of 11 percent. Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman and Tom Means,
the director of the public defender's office, have pondered the
effect, but the cause remains elusive.

So what's the cause of the growth in the crime rate? Is it drugs? Gang
activity? Economics?

"I don't really know the answer," Buhman said. "Why would it grow
faster?"

A natural assumption would be that prosecutions have increased because
there is more crime. Certain types of crime have certainly increased
since 2000, and there is an impression among many Utah County
officials that crime in general is on the rise as well. But crime has
not risen to an extent that would explain an 11-percent annual
increase in felony prosecutions. Crime statistics are inherently hard
to interpret. For example, according to the Utah Bureau of Criminal
Identification, which compiles annual crime statistics for the state,
burglaries increased by a yearly average of 4.8 percent from 2001 to
2006. Motor vehicle thefts in the county increased by an average of
2.8 percent in the same period. Yet the crime rate per 1,000 people in
Utah County actually decreased in those six years by an average of 4
percent.

Another theory could be that the county attorney's office has taken a
more aggressive approach to prosecutions, but Buhman said that is not
the case. Buhman, who has been in office since 2006, said his office
has increased its level of cooperation with law-enforcement agencies,
while deputy county attorney Tim Taylor points out how the office has
cut down on the number of plea bargains offered to defendants. Both
factors could contribute to a modest increase in prosecutions, they
said, but neither believe those policies fully explain the 11-percent
annual jump.

Lt. Doug Edwards of the Orem Department of Public Safety said the
increase may be attributable to the Utah County Major Crimes Task
Force, a collaborative effort of county law enforcement agencies that
focuses heavily on drug enforcement. Indeed, possession or
distribution of most drugs, aside from marijuana, are felony crimes,
and the task force has made a lot of drug arrests since it began
operations in the late 1990s. In 1998 it arrested 363 people on drug
charges, and that number hit its high-water mark in 2004 with 789 drug
arrests. Task force Lt. Phil Murphy said the focus that county
law-enforcement agencies put on drug enforcement has become more
aggressive over the past decade.

"I think it has to be because it's so much more prevalent in the news
and in our society that people are wanting to see that there is more
of an aggressive stance," Murphy said.

Taylor said it is possible that drug convictions are the driving
force, or at least part of it, behind increased felony prosecutions in
his office. As many as 50 percent of felony cases filed by the Utah
County Attorney's Office involve drug possession or distribution
charges without any of the associated crimes that often accompany drug
cases, such as burglary or fraud. But it's hard to say whether that
percentage has increased during the past few years, he said.

Means, whose public defenders represent about three-fourths of felony
defendants in Utah County, is skeptical that increased drug
enforcement is causing the increased prosecutions. The Utah County
Major Crimes Task Force focuses heavily on drug enforcement, he said,
but before that agency formed about a decade ago, there were other
countywide law-enforcement programs operating in its place. Spanish
Fork police Lt. Carl Johnston said the precursor agency of the task
force was the Narcotics Enforcement Team, or NET. That program was
similar to the task force, but it focused solely on drug crimes. The
primary focus of the task force is narcotics enforcement, Johnston
said, but unlike the NET, it investigates all major crimes.

"It's not a big change in its function. It got a name change is what
it all boiled down to," Johnston said of the transition from the NET
to the task force. "We have the same thing in a different package."

Means said one way in which the task force might have contributed to
increased prosecutions is that it allows police departments from
across the county to cooperate on major crimes, while some criminals
may have previously been able to escape capture by moving from city to
city.

"Just that communication alone prevents somebody from living in P.G.
and going down to Payson and committing offenses," Means said. "I
think that [the task force has] become very efficient."

Most Utah County law-enforcement agencies have added personnel over
the past decade, which could contribute to more felony prosecutions.
Arrests for "self-initiated" incidents such as DUIs and traffic
citations usually go up when there are more cops on the street, said
Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy.

Regardless of what is driving up felony prosecutions, crime does
appear to be on the rise in Utah County. Stephen Bahr, a sociology
professor at Brigham Young University, said a number of factors could
contribute to rising crime rates.

The three main factors, Bahr said, are an increase in drug use,
increasing immigration and an increase in the percentage of the
population that is between the ages of 15-30. People in the 15-30 age
group generally commit more crimes than their counterparts in other
age groups, while drug use usually encourages a variety of crimes that
people commit while under the influence or to support their habits.
Some Utah County judges say that as much a 90 percent of their
criminal cases are drug-related.

In addition, Bahr said there is some evidence that crime rates rise in
areas where a large percentage of the population is not from the area,
especially young people. Crime rates also tend to be higher in large
cities than small towns.