To the Community Members of Lane County and Lane County Sheriff’s Office Employees; I would like to take this opportunity to offer my thanks to the community members of Lane County and employees of the Lane County Sheriff’s Office for the support and hard work that went into recent accomplishments for the Sheriff’s Office. I am so appreciative of the support we received in passing the 2013 public safety levy that allowed us to open up more jail beds. The investment that our community has made into the public safety services we provide has had a profound impact on the safety of our community. Two additional housing areas in the jail were reopened after being closed and as a result, the number of inmates released early from jail has drastically decreased. Since the opening of the jail beds, our capacity based releases have decreased from 5,129 (fiscal year 2012/2013) down to 1,289 (fiscal year 2013/2014), which is approximately a 74% reduction in early releases. This has had a positive impact on our neighborhoods, our quality of life, and how safe we feel in our communities. The employees in the Corrections Division did a tremendous amount of work preparing the housing areas to be opened and have taken on a huge amount of overtime to ensure the housing areas are staffed while new deputies are being hired and trained. This sacrifice has been, and continues to be, difficult on employees and their families and I want to say thank you to each one of them, and extend my appreciation to their families. We would not have been able to open the jail beds as early as we did without the continued commitment and professionalism of these individuals. Our Police Services Division, though understaffed, has continued to go above and beyond as well. In early July, our detective unit, composed of only four deputies and a sergeant, worked two homicide cases involving three victims. Both of these cases presented unique challenges, including unknown suspects and victims in each case, with minimal information to go on. These types of cases are rare, and extremely complicated to investigate. Deputies were pulled from other assignments to assist with these investigations. It truly was a team effort. I am proud to report that arrests have been made in both cases, thanks to the hard work of these individuals and the many hours they put into these cases. We could not provide these services at the level we do without the hard work of the men and women of the Sheriff’s Office and the community’s support. I thank all of you for YOUR service and support of the Lane County Sheriff’s Office. We will continue to work towards making our community a safer place to live and work. Sincerest thanks, Sheriff Thomas M. Turner
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 22:22:14 +0000
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