Be glad those petty crimes get attention

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, September 7, 2005

You can make a case pro or con over the “law and

justice” sales tax hike on the upcoming ballot, but here’s an argument “against” that we wouldn’t have thought of: the Review’s “Police Blotter.”

We had lunch with one of our Bainbridge Police detectives recently, who related a conversation with a longtime islander. As the detective tells it, the gentleman said: “I read about the tax increase to pay for more police officers, then I look at the crime in the Police Blotter and laugh – they don’t match up.”

We appreciate the sentiment; nothing speaks to the human condition on Bainbridge Island quite like a dispute between neighbors over tree-cutting, or the disappearance of cell phones and designer purses from unlocked SUVs. By such measures, we islanders lead a remarkably sheltered existence. If this is what passes for crime here, who needs more cops?

At the same time, there is noteworthy criminal activity in our midst. Given the number of drunk-driving arrests, one can only wonder how many impaired motorists escape notice. Hardly a week goes by without an arrest for domestic assault. And intermittent arrests for possession and sale of controlled substances suggest that there is a measurable drug trade beneath the island’s upstanding veneer. Viewed that way, the thin blue line looks a bit stretched.

As we wrote last week, this newspaper is itself ambivalent about the law and justice levy; we tend to think the sales tax is the wrong way to pay for more police protection. But should it pass, we credit Bainbridge Police for devising a good plan to align the funds with community needs – two dedicated traffic officers to patrol the roadways, a student resource officer to make inroads with youths in our schools and a detective to work with seniors, a rapidly growing island demographic and one increasingly vulnerable to frauds and scams.

So do we really need more police? We could drum up some statistics on reports and investigations and arrests, but we’re not sure numbers alone tell the story. There is an awkward equilibrium between crime statistics and police staffing (or any public agency staffing, for that matter). If crime numbers go up, a department is criticized as ineffective; if the numbers go down, it’s suddenly “overstaffed” and criticized for waste. Nobody’s ever happy.

At least, until they read the Police Blotter, where island crime looks pretty mundane. But perhaps there is another way to read it: imagine if the mailbox bashings and petty shopliftings were to start going un-investigated, and eventually unreported. When a community is overrun by felony offenses – assaults, armed robberies, rapes, big-time drug transactions – that’s the point at which lesser crimes become legal by default. Asked to respond simultaneously to a holdup at one end of town and kids walking out of Safeway with donuts at the other, there’s no question where the police have to use their resources.

Yes, you can read the blotter for a good chuckle at your neighbors’ foibles. But also take some satisfaction in knowing that no matter how petty the crime in your neighborhood, the police can usually still send an officer out to sniff around.

When that changes – when petty crimes go unpunished because major ones demand too much police time – that’s when something’s out of whack.