This works the best of all! DIY Law Enforcement in Cash-Strapped Oregon County

Nearly thirty years ago, I lived in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, California. It was along the Pacific Coastside. It was a naturally wild area, with difficult access and pieces of Highway One would fall into the waves below the cliffs every so often.

We had no mail delivery. You picked it up at the Post Office. We had no Police. We rarely even saw a County Sheriff's Deputy. Most of the official law enforcement was from the Highway Patrol or the Coast Guard for rescue.

The real safety and law enforcement was by us, the citizens. Every neighbor I knew was armed and ready. We bad so little crime it was big news when even a misdemeanor took place. Most of the criminals were from outside the area, traveling vagrants, occasional teens gone wild or migrant farm workers.

But we all protected each other and ourselves. It was never official, rarely spoken of, but it was a fact of our lives. It just happened, organically, like eating or breathing.

Thing have changed there since. It developed, filled up with California Liberals. Now it is PC and has much more crime.  m/r

DIY Law Enforcement in Cash-Strapped Oregon County - YouTube

Published on May 1, 2013

"They will not send an officer out, so we are on our own totally," says Sam Nichols, co-founder of Citizens Against Crime. CAC is a group of around 20 armed volunteers who have been conducting routine patrols in and around O'Brien, Oregon since last summer. CAC patrols "are always a minimum of two people," says Nichols, precisely because they want to avoid the kind of thing "that happened in Florida, the case where Zimmerman shot the boy."

Why are the citizens of O'Brien patrolling their own streets? Josephine County is a rural area in south western Oregon with serious budget problems. Back in 1916, the federal government bought up millions of acres of land that had been owned by the railroads. The move left 18 Oregon counties without a significant source of property tax revenue. To make up for the lost taxes, the feds began giving the Oregon counties a share of the timber revenues in 1937. The program worked until environmental regulations severely curtailed logging in Oregon. By 1998, timber revenues had dropped to just a third of what they were in 1989. Temporary federal timber subsidies filled the gap, but those subsidies were phased out last year.

This year, Josephine County slashed its public safety budget from $20 million to less than $9 million. As a result, the county was forced to release 39 prisoners, including people charged with assault, burglary and rape. Only three sheriffs patrol Josephine County, an area larger than Rhode Island, and those sheriffs only respond to life-threatening calls.

The self-reliant folks who live in Josephine County aren't likely to raise their own taxes any time soon, but lots of citizens are willing to do their part to deter criminal activity. Sam Nichols and the other members of Citizens Against Crime strap on guns, turn on flashing lights mounted on their vehicles and keep an eye out for suspicious activity. Former deputy sheriff Carol Dickson maintains a Facebook page called To Catch a Thief as a kind of virtual neighborhood watch program. The page currently has more than 1600 followers.

"Some people are taking the law into their own hands, which obviously scares the heck out of me," says Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson. But because of the severity of Josephine County's budget problems, Gilbertson isn't complaining too loudly. As he puts it, "law enforcement in this community is weak at best."

Approximately 6.5 minutes.

Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.