A drop in filed felony criminal cases in 2009 doesn’t tell the whole story about the crime rate or crime trends in Washington County, authorities say.
Most of the crimes in the county are committed by people who live outside the county, Washington County Sheriff J.W. Jankowski said.
“We are in a prime area between Austin and Houston,” Jankowski said. “In 2008, we picked up a guy involved with a lot of burglaries. He would come through Washington County, case the area, commit his crime and go back to Houston.
“We are just vulnerable with easy access.”
The best way to fight this is to be more aware of surroundings and don’t hesitate to call 911 if you see any thing suspicious, Jankowski said.
“We are starting a lot of neighborhood watches and anyone can contact Damon Wegner at the sheriff’s office for information on starting a program,” Jankowski said.
The caseload for the sheriff’s office went up to 962 cases for 2009 from 873 cases in 2008. These include felony and misdemeanor crimes. District courts handle the felony cases.
“A lot of this has to do with the economy,” Jankowski said. “People are struggling to make ends meet, and the drug pushers are making easy money and using juveniles to push their stuff.”
District Attorney William Parham agreed with Jankowski. He thinks the economy plays a big role in crime rates.
“The economy of the county and the country certainly does affect the crime rate,” Parham said. “But crime is also cyclical. Family violence goes up around January and February when the Christmas bills are due.”
Weather has a lot to do with rising or falling seasonal crime, Parham said.
If a holiday is over a long, hot weekend then more people will be pulled over for a DWI, he said.
“Right now, the economy is the big thing,” Parham said. “People losing jobs will do things they normally wouldn’t do.”
But over the past 10 years the trend shows felony crimes has increased, except for a few odd years.
The total number of crimes went up for 2001-03, 2005 and 2007-08. Parham said these upward trends have something to do with the economy, but also the district attorney’s office would process any case that came through the door.
“Sometimes cases are filed that shouldn’t be filed, or they were filed as felonies and not misdemeanors,” Parham said. “The District Attorney’s job is to look at every case individually to see if there is an offensive.
“We don’t charge high in hopes for pleading low. We charge for the crimes committed, not the ones that we have to reach for.”
Parham took office as district attorney of Washington and Burleson counties in January 2009. He was also the assistant district attorney for Washington County from 2000-04.
Washington County doesn’t have many violent offenders, Parham said. It does have its share, but the county isn’t overburdened with an exhorbitant violent crime rate, he said.
“The law enforcement we have here, like the Brenham Police Department and the sheriff’s department, is proactive and that helps us,” Parham said. “There are a lot of criminal cases made on basic traffic stops.”
Routine checks during traffic stops often find subject wanted on warrants, including in other counties.
“They are wisely proactive,” Parham said. “The officers are not out there writing a bunch of tickets.”
Probation rates may be another cause in crime rising, Parham said. When people are handed probation they are less afraid about going to prison, he said.
“This is sending the wrong message,” Parham said. “Why are we wasting time with people who won’t make probation? I don’t try to bargain with probation and if the crime is serious enough, I don’t offer it.
“They will have to get it from a judge or a jury because they are not getting it from me.”
But putting more people in prison is not going to bring down the crime rate, Parham said, if the district attorney’s office doesn’t go after the professional criminals who escape the system and continue to commit crimes.
He said helping parolees to go straight after they have served their time has a big impact on the overall crime rate.
“There are individual successes with adjusting back into society,” Parham said. “It can be done but it depends on the person.”
There are programs that help parolees, Jankowski said. The Texas Workforce Commission and temporary agencies try to find them a job, and the parole officers have the information the parolee needs to restart his life.
“But that means they have to get away from what sent them to prison in the first place,” Parham said. “They have very little chance of changing anything if they remain in the same place doing the same thing.
“If they get a soft sentence then they don’t get the message, but if they get a tougher sentence based on the crime then we are sending the message that if they commit a crime they will go to jail.”
Parham said he doesn’t mind sending criminals to jail, but he wants to make sure that he has the elements of the offense to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person deserves prison time.
“The last thing I want to do is put an innocent person in prison,”
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