Law Enforcement Services in Clackamas County: Description and Financial Analysis

This report was prepared for the Clackamas County Blue Ribbon Committee on Law Enforcement by the Center for Urban Studies, Portland State University. The report provides a description of the current system of law enforcement service provision in the County by city and County service providers. It also analyzes the current financing process of law enforcement with regard to the equity of service received in relation co amounts paid by city and County residents. The analysis focuses only on law enforcement and does not address rhe other services provided by the County or other jurisdictions. Further, the findings presented here are factual and descriptive in nature and do not presume to recommend policy actions. General courses of action are recommended in a subsequent report. Finally, the reader should remember that service delivery at the local government level is no longer a simple matter. The individual actions of a single jwisdiction can have significant consequences for its neighbors and vice versa. In a metropolitan setting, service delivery is increasingly a matter of intergovernmental collaboration and cooperation. The period covered by the research is Fiscal Year 1986-87. This time period was chosen because the Committee lacked the resources for a long term trend analysis and for the mosc recenrly available audited expenditure reports of the covered jurisdictions. The jurisdictions involved included: Clackamas County Sheriffs Office (CCSO) and the cities of Barlow, Canby, Estacada, Gladstone, Happy Valley, Johnson City, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Molalla, Oregon City, Portland, Rivergrove, Sandy, Tualatin, West Linn, and Wilsonville. For reasons of data availability and analytical difficulties, the Portland and Tualatin law enforcement agencies were not fully treated in the analysis. All services provided by law enforcement agencies in the County were reviewed for this report. The current data collection system for each jurisdiction was consulted to establish the degree to which comparative analyses across jurisdictions would be possible. While each jurisdiction reportS to the state mandated Oregon Uniform Crime Reports system, the level of comparability is minimal because of reponing difference and the limits of this system. The Clackamas Law Enforcement Automated Support System data base was reviewed for its usefulness, but it also had limitations. Hence, for these and other limitations, the researchers were confined tO describing the current system without being able to compare service effectiveness. The kinds and degree of services provided are described for each jurisdiction and the extent of interjurisdictional contracting is also considered. Jurisdictional comparisons of personnel in total, per capita, and per square mile are provided. Similar comparisons are provided for crime response in total and per sworn officer