In rural NM, law enforcement can’t be everywhere at once

How does a law enforcement agency with 23 officers cover a county that spans 2,200 square miles, or an area a little larger than the state of Delaware?

Every time primary election season rolls around in Taos County, and candidates for sheriff come to the table to discuss the biggest challenges they might face, this question usually comes up in one form or another. Even with local support from New Mexico State Police (which has 11 officers), Taos Police Department (which has 19 officers) and tribal police departments on Taos and Picuris pueblos, the answer is that the sheriffs office will likely never reach a level where every call is responded to as quickly as callers would need or like.

This isn’t to say that the Taos County Sheriff’s Office shouldn’t grow in step with Taos County’s growing population. It should. Particularly since a higher population density tends to correlate with a higher rate of crime, increased funding for the Taos County Sheriff’s Office is logical and ought to be built into the county’s budget. That money should be used to put more deputies on patrol each shift, and to spread them across a broader area. Everyone in the office should also have equipment and vehicles that meet the latest industry standards. Training should be robust and frequent, especially when it comes to preparing officers for encounters with people who have mental health disorders or traversing the county’s rugged terrain for rescue or recovery missions. Whichever candidate wins this year’s primary, we hope they’ll make hunting for grants a part of their routine while in office, as Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe has for the last seven and a half years.

When Sheriff Hogrefe was asked during the 2018 primary how the sheriff’s office would improve response times, he said he would set up satellite offices in remote communities, like Peñasco, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Hogrefe works with the staff he has, placing deputies strategically around the county in an effort to cut down on call times, which, at that time, took between 15-20 minutes in some cases or just a few minutes in others, depending on what other calls are active at the time a new one comes in. Hogrefe has been successful in cutting response times, but not only by about 15 percent.

If you listen to the police scanner, you’ll hear dispatchers determining where every officer is at on a shift to see who might respond to a new call the fastest.

But, even with all the work that has been and will be done to grow the sheriff’s office and make use of its limited resources more efficiently, the some 80 percent of Taos County’s permanent residents who choose to live in remote areas will, sooner or later, have to confront the reality (if they haven’t already) that first responders from all of the county’s emergency agencies will likely always take longer to reach them than if they chose to live in a more urban area.

The question of how the sheriff’s office can reach outlying communities faster is sure to be asked again next election season, but residents of outlying communities might also ask this of themselves: What can my community do on its own to reduce the need for law enforcement in the first place?

A neighborhood watch program is one place to start. Easy to form, and proven to reduce crimes like burglaries, a neighborhood watch program should be in place in every remote community in Taos County. Taos’ outlying areas can do more to reduce factors known to drive criminal behavior as well, such as forming a local anti-drug coalition and seeking grants to bring in even the most basic mental health services. Schools in remote areas can also apply for grants to develop anti-drug programs and mental health screenings for students to help identify behavioral health conditions early on so that they can be addressed at the root level. And, in the home, parents can do the most basic work — by teaching their children right from wrong, and steering them into activities that can help them avoid early-age drug use and gang activity. Social media can be utilized to communicate with neighbors about where crime is taking place.

And all of Taos County’s residents can help free up our limited number of first responders by applying the same methods in their own communities, driving more responsibly to avoid crashes that can tie up officers for hours and ensuring that, when they dial 911, there’s a good reason to do so.