Oregon’s crime rates in 2009 were at a 50-year low, the FBI reported last week.
Measuring violent crime and property crime, which are the two main indexes used to track uniform crime rates across the nation, the FBI found Oregon bucked national trends by showing drops in crime in four of the state’s largest cities: Portland, Salem, Eugene and Gresham.
The numbers were particularly encouraging for Eugene, which saw a 5 percent drop in violent crimes and a shift from an increasing property crime rate in 2008 to a decreasing rate today.
Executive director of Oregon Criminal Justice Commission Craig Prins said that of violent crimes in Oregon, aggravated assault is the most common, and of property crimes in the state, larceny theft was by far the most common.
Prins also associated the drop in crime with law enforcement’s focus on methamphetamine in the state.
“I’m always asked why (crime rates are) down so much,” he said. “My conclusion is there is multiple causes of crime. We policy makers don’t have a pull lever to guarantee a crime rate drop. But I do feel comfortable in saying I think we should look at this meth trend at the exact same time as talking about the drop in crime rates.”
Oregon, one of the most active states for meth production in the country, achieved a 36-percent drop in arrests for methamphetamine possession between 2007 and 2010.
Prins believes the reduction in arrests is the result of Oregon lawmakers putting restrictions on pseudoephedrine, an active ingredient in many cold medicines and a primary ingredient in meth production. Oregon’s move came in unison with federal restrictions and a ban of pseudoephedrine in Mexico.
Prins said pharmaceutical operations in the state that originally fought the state on the pseudoephedrine ban have replaced the active ingredient in many of their cold medicines.
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