Progress on public safety.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It has been said so often and for so long that people have grown numb: A crisis is engulfing Lane County's public safety system. By looking at the problem rather than its many symptoms, however, Lane County and its 12 cities may find a way to mobilize support for a solution.

The symptoms are familiar: There aren't enough police or deputies to investigate crimes or make arrests. The district attorney's office doesn't have enough lawyers to prosecute so-called minor crimes.

Many of those who are convicted or being held for trial must be released early because there's not enough room in the jail. There aren't enough probation workers to supervise inmates after their release. People whose crimes are the result of drug addiction often can't find treatment.

Attempts to treat these symptoms have met with frustration for more than a decade. Everything, it seems, has been tried. Big plans to enhance the entire public safety system and small fixes for different parts of the system have been rejected by the voters - they promise too much, they do too little, they have poorly ordered priorities, they're too expensive, or they rely on an unpopular form of taxation.

The latest rejection came not from the voters but from the Eugene City Council, which in May refused to amend the regional land-use plan to clear the way for a countywide public safety district. The council may have saved everyone some time. The voters would probably have rejected the district, judging from the lack of enthusiasm among city officials in both Eugene and Springfield.

The rejection caused county officials to take two important steps. The first was to invite representatives from all 12 cities in Lane County to participate in crafting a solution to the public safety crisis. The second was to realize that they've misidentified the problem. The problem isn't too few sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, jail beds, probation officers or treatment programs.

The problem is methamphe- tamine.

Meth is at the root of half or more of property crimes in Lane County. When women or children are abused, chances are good that there's meth in the house. There would be plenty of room in the jail if it weren't for all the people convicted of making, selling or using meth, or of other crimes resulting from meth addiction. An effective attack on the meth epidemic would make much of the public safety crisis go away.

Looking at the public safety crisis as a drug problem rather than as a shortage of government resources invites clear thinking. Previous plans to strengthen the public safety system have suffered from a tension between punishment and prevention, and no plan could satisfy the advocates of one or the other. An effective response to the meth problem demands both sanctions and treatment. Without sanctions, there's no way to get meth-addicted criminals off the street and into treatment. Without treatment, sanctions become a revolving door.

The details of a response to the meth epidemic, including the means of paying for it, still must be worked out. Familiar competitive pressures will arise between law enforcement and social-service agencies. Coordinating city and county public safety programs remains a challenge.

But when the bathtub is overflowing, as Lane County's public safety system is, it's not helpful to argue over whether the tub has enough capacity. The first thing to do is to start turning off the spigot, the one marked meth. Once that's understood, the path to a solution that the public will support should become more clear.