Local law enforcement agencies, in particular the Coos County District Attorney are pushing for the passage of Measure 62. The measure seeks to divert 15% of lottery funds away from programs like education in favor of state crime labs and prosecution.
District Attorney, Paul Frasier has written asking for public support of Measure 62 to supplement his department by an additional $318,000 annually. Before handing another third of a million dollars to the Coos County DA each year the stewardship of the current DA budget must be reviewed.
Any prosecutor that allows the office of district attorney to be used to settle personal vendettas, as I believe the Coos County office has, is not a proper steward of public money. Nor is a prosecutor who depletes resources on petty code enforcement while failing to prosecute serious crimes like extreme animal cruelty or rape.
Personally, I have experienced first hand the uneven handed justice dispensed from Frasier’s department. For example, I was prosecuted for trespass for merely returning signs, at the direction of a Coquille Police officer by the way, wrongfully placed on my property by an immediate neighbor.
This required an out of county judge, as the complainant was well known to the residing judges and Paul Frasier, and no doubt cost the county a fair amount of money. Worse, both the tampering of an expensive line survey and the submission of that altered boundary evidence into a court of law, (effectively perpetrating a fraud upon the court), went un-punished.
Frasier allowed his office to be used to settle a score yet again. While I was away on a trip to DC my nine-year old daughter was bitten by the same neighbor’s dog and did not report it to me until a week or so after my return. In trying to recreate the date of the bite my daughter was wrong by one day.
Frasier not only did not prosecute the dog bite but actually brought charges against me, at the neighbor’s behest, alleging the filing of a false report because my daughter was wrong about the date she was bitten. His office was ultimately forced to drop the charges but not until considerable public funds had been wasted.
Selective prosecution is a violation of civil rights and a betrayal of public trust as is denying equal protection. The conduct of Frasier’s office has lost my respect and earned my enmity. Information has been provided to me that suggests I may not be the only citizen victimized by Frasier’s office in such a manner and this article will likely motivate more people to come forward. Obviously, behavior such as this does not merit entrusting the Coos County DA’s office with an increase in public funds.
Even if I believed that an increase in funding would enable or encourage the Coos County DA’s office to prosecute the crimes perpetrated against me, which I don’t, I would still oppose Measure 62. America’s prison population has increased to 1% of the population, more than 2.5 million people the largest in the world, while our academic standing among industrialized nations has plunged.
An April 2004 study titled The Effects of State Public K–12 Education Expenditures on Income Distribution published by the National Education Association noted the strong relationship between investments in human capital such as education. States spending more on education show higher income levels and less disparity between earning levels between the richest and poorest.

The study further concludes, logically, reducing income inequality and by increasing the incomes of lower median earners more than raising higher incomes leads to the reduction of poverty rates. Many studies have linked, statistically and empirically, poverty rates and high crime rates including the Kirwan Institute on the Study of Race and Ethnicity. “Studies have shown concentrated poverty to have adverse effects on many facets of life, including employment, education, health and criminal behavior.”

The obvious conclusion is that investing in education, human capital, rather than prosecution, is the best long-term investment in crime prevention and offers the highest return on investment to the taxpayer. Previous topics in this column have addressed the issue of mandatory minimum sentencing, privatized prisons and the core relationship between education and crime.

The Oregonian recommends a NO vote on measure 62 noting it is ill conceived and poorly crafted and diverts millions from education toward a mish mash of public safety causes. Please vote NO on Measure 62 and while you’re at it vote NO on 61.