To better understand the people and issues in their jurisdiction, prosecutors in the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office are stepping out into the community.

With police ride-alongs and satellite offices, the attorneys hope they’ll learn how to make fighting crime in the county more cost-effective.

District Attorney Patrick Flaherty said the idea is based on community-based prosecution, a concept in use in Multnomah County and other large counties around the state.

The DA’s office here is too small to put a full-time deputy district attorney in each of the county’s regions. But Flaherty said it’s a work in progress and hopes the small steps will help agencies work together more efficiently and ensure the community feels safe.

“The first part is to learn what the community believes to be the most significant criminal problems in their neighborhood, things that are affecting their quality of life,” he said.

The Bend Police Department has recently established a committee to gather information on what crimes occur where, with the idea of using the information to focus attention on certain areas and certain crimes.

“Traditionally the prosecutor’s office and the police are reactive,” Deputy District Attorney Beth Bagley said. “This will help us be more proactive. It can have a reductive effect on crime.”

It’s obvious why police might want to gather and use that information, but the DA’s office wants to use the crime data to determine how best to charge crimes.

“It’s important to know which areas are facing acute problems,” Flaherty said.

Certain crimes, like criminal mischief, aren’t always prosecuted to the fullest extent because the resources required might outweigh the harm resulting from such crimes.

“It can cost thousands of dollars to prosecute someone who shoplifted a beer,” Bagley said.

But if attorneys know one neighborhood has faced a rash of criminal mischief problems, they can more aggressively charge people who are caught committing such crimes in that neighborhood and, presumably, deter other criminals.

“It’s meant to capture low-level crimes that might not be prosecuted as crimes, that might be treated as violations,” Bagley said. “They’ll be subjected to more scrutiny.”

And if the police know the DA’s office is going to level more serious charges, they might be more willing to make an arrest instead of issuing a warning.

If dozens of arrests stem from one local bar, the DA’s office can use that information as well, Flaherty said.

“If we have a problem bar, we can go to the (Oregon Liquor Control Commission) or send a letter to the property owner. That’s a very inexpensive way to solve problems.”

Developing a better understanding of crime

Knowing where crime occurs is the first step. But Flaherty also wants his employees to learn more about what happens before cases get to their office.

First, deputy DAs are developing a better understanding of common criminal behavior by riding along with Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies. They’ll do the ride-alongs with the Redmond Police Department in coming months.

“It’s opened attorneys’ eyes to what officers do on patrol,” Bagley said. “They do a lot with community policing, with animals, with suicidal subjects.”

The attorneys also took tours of Deschutes County’s 911 call center and the Oregon State Police crime lab. The deputy DAs focused on juvenile crime have met with all area school resource officers.

Bagley said the DAs are also taking turns attending the sheriff’s office detective briefings each week to provide legal advice and to share updates on various crimes and investigations. They hope to do the same with the Bend Police Department.

The next step will be having a DA on hand in area stations to help police when they need it. One deputy district attorney recently conducted training at the Redmond Police Department, and Flaherty hopes that soon an attorney will be at the Redmond office one day a week.

Redmond Police Chief Dave Tarbet said having a district attorney around will make life easier. His officers are constantly on the road between Bend and Redmond: to get a search warrant signed, to testify in a trial, to bring a suspect to jail.

“It saves a lot of road time to be able to sit down with a DA and review whatever it might be a search warrant, a subpoena, to talk about the direction we’re moving in an investigation,” Tarbet said.

Already, the Redmond Police conduct video conferences for grand jury appearances. Having someone from the district attorney’s office present, Tarbet hopes, will further cut down on trips south.

“That’s an hour round-trip, minimum,” he said. “If there’s any way we can trim down travel time and administrative time, that would free us up to do other things.”

The Deschutes County DA’s Office will have an office and computer in the new county administrative building in Redmond, which is scheduled to open in early 2012. Someday, Flaherty said, he’d like to have a deputy DA in Redmond all day, every day.

Opening communication

Capt. Erik Utter of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said his office has always had a good relationship with the district attorney’s office when it has responded to major crimes like homicides.

“Any time we have a major incident we have somebody from the DA’s office who comes out to the scene and interacts with our guys and talks about, from the case standpoint, things we need to make sure we’re considering when we’re moving forward with our investigation,” he said. “This just adds a little bit more.”

Utter likes the idea of deputy district attorneys knowing more about law enforcement activities.

“It helps them understand some of the challenges in certain areas of our county,” he said. “There are differences within our county and each community, and what they see as important to them. … Anytime you have an opportunity for law enforcement staff to interact with the DA’s staff, that’s great because it opens up the lines of communication more.”