RANDALL COUNTY BOOSTS BUDGET TO FIGHT CRIME

Randall County is putting some money into the methamphetamine trade - on
the law enforcement and prosecution side.

The budget, set for approval this month, includes $344,340 for the
Narcotics Regional Team - a combination effort between the Sheriff's
Department and the Criminal District Attorney's Office.

Sheriff Joel Richardson said he mentioned his concern about the growing
meth trade in the county to County Judge Ernie Houdashell, who spurred the
project through commissioners court and into the budget.

"Law enforcement is not going to win the war on drugs, but we can make the
battleground so hot in Randall County, they'll go somewhere else,"
Richardson said.

Houdashell said the county budget increases are related to fighting crime,
and trying criminals, and the narcotics team is a way to help clean up the
criminal element.

"I decided we were going to take our county back, and I budgeted $344,000,
and that's just a small amount," he said.

The money will go toward five employee salaries - two assistant district
attorneys, two deputies and a clerk. Some will be used for technical
equipment and a limited amount of informant and buy money.

The recent investigation into the death of Dustin Pool, who was found in
June buried under concrete in rural Randall County, brought to light the
growing methamphetamine culture.

Trying the cases is expected to raise the county's budget by 1 percent,
Houdashell said. He added that meth users' crimes filter down to affect
every resident.

Criminal District Attorney James Farren will dedicate two of his assistant
district attorneys to the cause.

"What we're offering to the effort is vertical prosecution, like we handle
child abuse cases where the prosecutor is involved in the investigation all
the way through to the trial," he said.

With the narcotics team, prosecutors and deputies expect to bring the
harshest punishment to drug violations.

"If we can simply make this environment unfriendly to drug users and drug
dealers and they leave and go somewhere else - that's fine with us," Farren
said.

Randall County participates in the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force,
but this new team will allow for more focused efforts in Randall County.

"The regional task force has to spread their efforts across the 26
counties," Farren said. "We'll assist them."

There will be two more sets of eyes and ears gathering information, Farren
said.

The team will concentrate on the rural areas, but won't be limited there,
he said. Where the regional task force concentrates on big-time dealers,
the team will focus on the street-level users.

"The problem's gotten too big," Richardson said. "We've outgrown the task
force. We've outgrown what I've got."

Farren expects the effort to produce results.

"Extra added law enforcement and prosecution will lead to additional cases,
additional prosecution and put pressure on folks who live in that world to
go somewhere else, to leave Randall County," Farren said.

Richardson said he expects the team to begin working in the next month.

"At the end of the year, we'll evaluate what we've done, and see if we've
had any effect on the problem," he said. "The hardest to measure is the
effect on quality of life. Did we have any effect on the quality of life?
Do people feel safer? The bottom line is we hope to make the community a
better community."