As the community has rallied to fight the opioid crisis, the Columbus Police Department is also seeing some progress in the war on narcotic abuse.
Opioid overdose-related deaths in Columbus were down last year by more than 58 percent from a year earlier, according to the Columbus Police Department’s 2018 Annual Report.
Ten opioid overdose related deaths were recorded in Columbus by the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office last year, compared to 24 deaths in 2017.
CPD responded to 39 opioid overdose calls in 2018 — about half of the 78 received just one year earlier. Countywide, there was a 40 percent reduction in heroin-overdose incidents last year, said Columbus Police Chief Jon Rohde.
Although opioids and heroin has received a lot of press in recent years, Rohde says methamphetamine remains the most popular illegal narcotic locally.
“We do consistently see more methamphetamine than heroin,” the police chief said. “Most of it is crystal methamphetamine brought in from Mexico.”
But in partnership with federal drug enforcement agencies, information is now being shared that will help reduce the amount of the drugs coming into the city, as well as help track the origin of the suppliers, Rohde said.
Those partners include the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Postal Service inspectors.
The entire county has also benefited from the creation of the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team, the chief said. Known as JNET, the four-year-old task force combines narcotics officers from the Columbus Police Department and Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office while investigating narcotics cases.
While officers increased adult arrests last year, only 27 percent involved a drug offense, according to CPD statistics. That is substantially fewer than the 48 percent of all arrests made in 2017, as well as the 40 percent in 2016, the report states.
These figures “demonstrate that our law enforcement efforts to reduce drug supply, and the community-wide efforts to decrease drug demand, are having a positive and progressive impact,” Rohde said.
In recent years, law enforcement officials have frequently credited “pro-active policing” in their approach to handling crime and addictions.
But in addition, Rohde says his department also has fully-implemented an intelligence-led policing program.
This type of program attempts to identify potential victims and likely repeat offenders — and then works with a variety of partners to provide offenders an opportunity to change their behavior before being arrested for a more severe crime.
In addition to three officers, the CPD intelligence-led policing unit also employs a civilian criminal intelligence analyst. The team collects and stores all information, analyzes the data, and produces actionable direction for law enforcement activities, the report states.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, intelligence-led policing is “a collaborative law enforcement approach combining problem-solving policing, information sharing, and police accountability, with enhanced intelligence operations.”
While law enforcement constantly works to arrest drug dealers to thwart the supply of drugs, working with community partners to reduce or eliminate the demand is just as important in addressing the opioid crisis.
In the report, Rohde describes the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention’s ability to reduce drug demand as “a major component to crime reduction, as well as producing many other collateral community benefits.”
But other valuable cited partners cited include the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, the upcoming Adult Drug Court, the Veterans Court, Safe Places, and neighborhood crime watches, the report states.
The practice of evidence-based decision making in the county’s judicial system is also significant in combating the drug crisis, Rohde said.
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The following comparison indicates the drop in drug-related arrests by the Columbus Police Dept. over the past three years.
2016
Non-drug offense arrests: 1,186
Drug offense arrests: 793
Percent of all arrests involving drugs: 40 percent
2017
Non-drug offense arrests: 959
Drug offense arrests: 895
Percent of all arrests involving drugs: 48 percent
2018
Non-drug offense arrests: 1,343
Drug offense arrests: 527
Percent of all arrests involving drugs: 27 percent
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