FLE

Forest Crimes A Growing Concern As the summer travel season hits full swing, new studies suggest that recreational users of national forests in the United States should be aware of increased levels of theft, violent crime, drug production and even gang activity – and take necessary precautions. About 35 percent of law enforcement officers in the Forest Service have been assaulted, experts say. There is a perception among enforcement officials that crimes such as property theft, indiscriminate shootings, criminal damage and production of methamphetamine is significantly increased in many areas. And the number of crimes and related incidents on national forests and grasslands doubled in one recent five-year period, while the number of law enforcement officers was the same or lower. Those findings are from a study concluded last month by researchers from Oregon State University and the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service. The study will be released first to the Forest Service, which provided the funding. And another paper to be published in the Journal of Forestry, called “Crime in National Forests: A Call for Research,” summarizes previous findings and suggests that more research on crime in national forests is necessary and long overdue....
Vast forests, thin patrols provide cover to those hiding from law The man who allegedly kidnapped two children and spirited them away into the wilds on the Montana-Idaho border may have remained undetected because a single local law enforcement officer patrols more than a million acres of rugged, densely treed U.S. Forest Service territory. Joseph E. Duncan III, suspected of killing at least three people and kidnapping two others in a May 17 attack, spent part of seven weeks at a remote campsite perched on a ridge with an eagle-eye view of the Two Mile Creek Valley — a site where investigators say he killed Dylan Groene, 9. Typically, 42 officers cover about 17 million acres of federal forest and grassland in northern Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas. That's now reduced to 37 positions, with some positions unfilled because of budget cuts. It could fall to 32 by next year with retirements and scaled-back funding, Forest Service officials said. If the force shrinks, it could make the nation's national forests an even more appealing spot for alleged criminals to melt away into the trees....
More crime means it's no longer just a walk in the woods Awoman who hates guns surprised me with her recent suggestion that it might be time to pack a gun while camping. She's not worried about Oregon's rising bear and cougar populations. Rather, she's concerned about two-legged predators. Looming large in her psyche is the recent shooting of a school counselor and his teacher friend at a remote campsite near Oakridge. My friend's concern about safety is well-advised, according to an Oregon State University researcher studying crime in national forests. "The forests are no longer places where you can get away from it all," said Joanne Tynon, an assistant professor at OSU who's been looking into crime on Forest Service lands since 1997. Forests are becoming more like cities, in that "things like murder, rape, assault and drug labs" are occurring. Tynon is putting the finishing touches on the results of the first nationwide survey of Forest Service law enforcement officers (LEOs), 35 percent of whom say they have been threatened or assaulted while on the job. Of course, rangers are often summoned to the scene of trouble, so their experiences are not representative of the public at large....
Crime in the woods: Let's take our public forests back Those looking to get away from it all in Oregon's vast, federal forests and grasslands increasingly are finding the worst of "it" is waiting for them, according to a joint study by Oregon State University researchers and the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service. The report concludes that methamphetamine production, assaults, rapes and even murders are on a dramatic increase in the forest. Joanne Tynon, an OSU associate professor who specializes in studying forestland crime, reports that "things like murder, rape, assault and drug labs in the woods" are all on the increase. She also says, though: "We don't want people to be terrified of going camping or enjoying the outdoors or to take inappropriate steps, such as carrying weapons." But who could blame us if we did? Any tangible solution or even action on this issue is years away. The joint study concludes that 35 percent of Forest Service law enforcement officials have been attacked on the job. How safe are the rest of us, even in our own "backyard" forest, the Siuslaw National Forest? It is high on the list of national forest trouble spots, logging 49 felonies in 2003 and 2004. The OSU/Forest Service study also suggests that a study of state forests, national parks and county parks also would document a crime wave in the wilds....


Gee, you don't think there might be some lobbying going on here do you? Let's see, the Forest Service gives a grant to OSU to do a joint study, and lo and behold the study says the Forest Service needs more money and personnel to protect the public. Isn't that an amazing coincidence.

Do a search each night for the Forest Service, and you will find their officers are involved in all kinds of activities (drug raids, traffic stops, etc.) off Federal land. Perhaps if they stuck to policing Federal lands only we would find they are not shorthanded. Furthermore, FLPMA authorizes the Feds to contract with local law enforcement so there is no need to expand the Federal police force.

Now for some good news:

Nominee Opposed Police Role for Agencies

More than 20 years ago, as a young White House lawyer, John G. Roberts Jr. warned against expanding federal law enforcement powers to agencies like the Commerce, Agriculture and Interior Departments, declaring that "activities such as arrest and search are the most intrusive a government performs," and seconding a recommendation that such functions be limited to the Justice and Treasury Departments. Mr. Roberts's advice was in a May 16, 1984, memorandum to the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, then his boss, at a time when agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management were pressing for - and sometimes getting - police powers to handle problems like toxic waste investigations and armed marijuana growers in the West. But Mr. Roberts's view, a classic conservative articulation of the individual's right to be protected from state power, rings with perhaps renewed relevance today, in light of the government's use of expanded law enforcement authority in pursuit of the war on terror. The memorandum was among the tens of thousands of pages of documents released in recent weeks from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Roberts offered his views on expanded law enforcement powers as an associate White House counsel, reviewing proposed guidelines that would "represent a general administration commitment not to grant law enforcement authority to agencies other than Justice and Treasury." They would require an agency that sought such powers to prove that "the need cannot be met by other agencies with such authority." The guidelines arose in a context in which various agencies were seeking new police powers, sometimes with the support of Congress and liberal groups, which questioned the Reagan administration's commitment to enforce environmental laws. In February 1984, for example, The New York Times said in an editorial that argued for an expansion of criminal investigators at the E.P.A., "Toxic waste dumping isn't just another white collar crime." Mr. Roberts acknowledged that the administration's guidelines "will doubtless be viewed as an effort by Justice and Treasury to protect their 'turf,' but it is true that the proliferation of criminal law enforcement authority throughout the government is a dangerous trend that should be halted if not reversed." "Activities such as arrest and search are the most intrusive a government performs," he added, "and as a general matter it seems desirable to limit authority to perform such activities to one agency, an agency that can be expert in the area, sensitive to the various rights involved and clearly accountable for the law enforcement mission. Commerce, Agriculture, Interior and so forth are not likely to be sufficiently sensitive to the activities of small numbers of their employees authorized to enforce criminal laws under their particular jurisdiction."....

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