Between 2015 and 2016, Haines minor offense cases jumped by 101 percent, according to Alaska court records, reflecting the largest increase in minor offense case dispositions statewide.
Of the 279 minor offenses logged by Haines Police and troopers in 2016, 131 were for “improper driver behavior.”
According to Alaska court records, those numbers compare to 17 people in Petersburg last year cited for improper driver behavior. In Skagway, the number was four and in Wrangell, two.
In Haines, the 131 motorists cited in 2016 represented a 263 percent increase in “improper driver behavior” cases from the previous year.
Haines Borough Police Chief Heath Scott has cited minor offense statistics as an argument for more department funding and addimg an additional officer. He’s brought them up at several public meetings and during a KHNS radio show last week.
Minor offenses include everything from controlled substance violations, dog tickets and vehicle registration issues to illegal or improper maneuvers such as failure to yield or failure to signal.
During the KHNS radio show, news director Emily Files questioned Scott about a sharp rise in improper driving behavior cases, which encompass a variety of illegal or improper driving maneuvers.
“It’s police officers getting out into the community and doing their job,” Scott said during the KHNS interview. “Once we pull over that vehicle there may be other things we get into. It’s a gateway to communicating with the citizens of the borough.”
Scott said pulling people over for minor offenses is a potential way to discover more serious crimes such as DUIs and, if it’s nothing serious, his officers mostly give out warnings.
“If you reduce the size of the police department, or leave it as status quo, we may not be able to fix some of the problems that we would with more officers and with more capability,” Scott told KHNS.
Of the 279 minor offense cases in Haines during 2016, 165 of which were issued by the state trooper.
The increase in minor offense cases appears to reflect a rise in enforcement, not individuals breaking the law. Haines Police officer Chris Brown told Files that pulling people over during traffic stops is the best way to catch people out on warrants, wanted felons and those who escape custody.
“The number one way they’re apprehended is through traffic stops,” Brown said. “The number one way. That’s how the serial killer Ted Bundy was captured, that’s how Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was captured.”
In a separate interview with the CVN this week, Scott said it’s not fair to compare enforcement numbers to other communities such as Petersburg, Wrangell and Skagway – departments which aren’t underfunded and don’t have the same turnover rate as Haines officers. He said those towns have low offense numbers because they have steady enforcement.
“In Haines, that hasn’t been apparent,” Scott said. “You’ve had low resources. You’ve had high turnover rates. You have a community that thinks ‘I can get away with anything.’ I’m not judging that, but nobody’s been here to consistently enforce a steady baseline level to make people think about changing their behavior for the good. That’s what Wrangell, Petersburg and Skagway has over us.”
Scott added the number one reason for pulling people over, whether they’re ticketed or not, is to change driving behavior and make the roadways safer.
He also cited that 29 officers have come through the Haines Police Department in less than 10 years due in large part to a lack of resources.
Petersburg’s fiscal year 2017 police budget is around $1.6 million. Wrangell’s is $1 million and Skagway’s is $1.5 million compared to Haines’ $520,000.
When asked if the large increase in minor offense cases was part of a new enforcement strategy, Scott said “the answer is no.”
“There’s no policy change,” Scott said. “We’re not using traffic as a means to making arrests. We’re not using traffic as a means to over-enforce”
Although the Haines district court saw a 20 percent increase in filed misdemeanor cases last year, 20 of those 59 cases were dismissed.
During the same year, more traffic stops and improper driver behavior citations increased in town, misdemeanor district court dispositions actually decreased by 20 percent and felony dispositions remained flat in Superior Court.
The borough will soon hold community meetings to discuss the future of policing outside the townsite since the state trooper “blue-shirt” position was removed from the community.
Police have already responded to calls out the road, and that call volume isn’t likely to go down.
In 2016, the Alaska State Troopers received 215 calls for service, 46 of which were for criminal activity including theft, vandalism and sexual assault. Interim borough manager Brad Ryan recently directed the department to respond only to emergency calls out the road.
Minor offenses became a hot topic in 2015, when the municipality was required by the state to bring its minor offense laws up to state standards. Residents spoke out against the strict enforcement of some minor offense laws and questioned the purpose of others.
Mike Denker, chair of the borough’s Code Review Commission, also was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Minor Offenses.
“We wanted to accentuate compliance over enforcement and not the heavy hand of enforcement. That was one of the intents we looked at, at the time. We looked to soften minor offense language in code.”
Denker said among code changes that were passed was empowering the public safety commission to request statistics from the police department to keep a check on “over-enforcement.”
“There was a big concern from the public about over-enforcement and policing for profit,” Denker said.
Scott said he wants to build trust within the community, and that his officers use discretion when writing tickets and rarely impose fines. According to borough data, police fines and fees went down from 2016 compared to 2015 despite the increase in minor offenses.