- By Dan Veaner
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| See the candidate comparison chart on the Elections page. |
Lansing Star: What makes you the best candidate for Sheriff?
Brian Robison: In a word, experience. Actual law enforcement experience. Experience in dealing with people, the public on a day to day basis. The majority of my career was investigating crimes. When doing that you have to have an ability to not only deal with suspects, but victims. That sort of experience, there is no substitute for. As Sheriff and as a person that's setting policy for the rest of the department I would imagine that it would be quite difficult to set policy of any type without the actual practical experience of having performed the job.
LS: You spent most of your career doing criminal investigation, but did you work your way through all the jobs?
BR: I did. I've walked a beat, I've done routine patrol. The majority of my career was as a criminal investigator, investigating crimes from murder, rape, property crimes, domestic violence. One area that I was called upon to develop a proficiency for was financial crime investigation. Employee theft, embezzlement, very large time consuming, tedious investigations.
LS: So-called white collar crimes?
BR: Yes. That's the name used to commonly refer to it. I'm comfortable dealing with financial matters, financial documents. I have looked over past Sheriff's Department budgets. I don't see that as being something that I'm going to have great difficulty in understanding.
Having said that, the Sheriff does have at his disposal a county administrator, an accounting office, and personnel currently within the Sheriff's office who work on the budget together.
Much is made about having had the experience of working on a department budget such as the Sheriff's Office. If you think about it many positions require that one works on a budget such as a school superintendent, other elected officials such as town supervisors, things of that nature. Generally those folks did not have even the financial background that I have. When's the last time you heard of a school district going bankrupt? It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen because you use all available resources that you have to make sure it doesn't happen.
I know in the case of the current sheriff, he is quite proud of the fact that he has never gone over budget. I guess the question that I ask is, 'Isn't that what you're supposed to do?' You're not supposed to go over budget, regardless.
LS: I wanted to ask you about that because you mention it in your literature. One of the things that you say is that you want to control double digit budget rises. What approach would you take to do that?
BR: I've looked at the Sheriff's Office budgets. When the incumbent initially ran for the position he touted himself as the person with the fiscal management skills to keep costs down for the County. Certainly the inference was made that the previous administration was not doing that. Since that time costs and budgets at the Sheriff's Department have risen dramatically.
I disregarded the first year of this eight year term, simply because one could argue that that was a holdover budget from the previous administration. Since that time the Sheriff's Office budget has risen 91.5%. That's an annual increase of 13%. That is not keeping costs down.
LS: This may not equate to budget rises, but the annual report says there was a 3% rise in calls in 2005.
BR: I can tell you that the rise in calls is somewhat subjective. One department may call it a call and another may not. Simply because the phone rings and someone has a general question -- it is not viewed by some departments as a call for service.
LS: Are you saying it is in this department?
BR: I don't know that it is. The problem I have is that we are showing an increase in the calls for service, however actual reported complaints -- the complaints reported to the Sheriff's Office to what's called a unified crime report, which is a true indicator of self-reported statistics to the FBI -- that rate has actually fallen steadily over the last eight years. Not only county-wide, but state-wide and nationally.
That's public information. It's on the Internet. Just go to the FBI site and look up 'unified crime reports,' find Tompkins County. I have researched it and charted those numbers. It's simply a tabulation starting with murder, rape, all the way down. It's an adding up of the numbers.
LS: Going back to the rise in the budget, what approach would you take to curtailing it?
BR: Aside from some things that I see as obvious... One needs to simply drive by the Sheriff's Office and see vehicles that sit there idly. Those vehicles are not free. They're quite expensive, and in my view it's a waste of taxpayers' money. As we know, on average there are three to four sheriff's deputies out at any one given time. Why do you need upwards of thirty vehicles?
I would rather spend that money on additional personnel to get better coverage, better presence out in the rural areas where there is a real concern about the lack of those services.
LS: Right, towns like Lansing that don't have police forces of their own.
BR: That's correct.
LS: What's the top item that you'd like to accomplish if you are elected?
BR: These things tend to tie together. I am a big believer in all of law enforcement working cooperatively with one another to make all agencies more effective. And they should, in turn, be more efficient.
When a call comes in from a citizen, they want prompt, professional service. Otherwise they wouldn't be calling.
LS: Usually the reason they're calling demands that, doesn't it?
BR: Sure. That's something that's pretty obvious. People don't call unless they need some sort of service. And they expect that service to be prompt, to be professional. It's been my experience that who provides that service is not of great importance to them. We in law enforcement have got to get past a mentality that jurisdictional lines dictate those sorts of services.
As an example, a resident of the Village of Lansing calls, and they want service. Sometimes that service is, by its very nature, necessitates very prompt service.
LS: Right. Someone's in my house...
BR: Yes, something's in progress, or someone is badly injured as a result of an automobile accident. Things of that nature.
The Village of Lansing, as in most of the county, does not have its own police force. In many cases a responding agency such as the Sheriff's Office may be a good distance away from that area. Presently the way it works is that another agency -- and in this case the Village of Cayuga Heights is much closer to where that call for service originates from -- they can not respond to that call unless specifically asked by the responding agency for help.
That goes against the grain of police officers in general. They're trained -- by the very nature of their work they want to go help someone in need. They don't like the fact that they need to get permission to go render that help.
Many times these calls are responded to by the Tompkins County Sheriff's Office. Any agency that is not specifically covered by a specific jurisdiction, their services are rendered most often by the Sheriff's Office.
LS: The ones with jurisdiction for these areas are Sheriff and State.
BR: Yes. I understand that given the vastness of Tompkins County you're talking nearly 500 square miles. When you have, let's say, three sheriff's deputies and one or two state police units responsible for that much coverage, it's a tough job. Why not use other resources that are available to you?
Calls that are not a great distance outside the city of Ithaca, generally they will have anywhere from seven to ten officers working on a particular shift. I know from my experience working there, that they are more than willing to help. And again, the person calling for help is more than willing to have them come. That's what I mean by prompt service.
In order for that to occur it's going to take a change in attitude on the part of the County. I like to think of Tompkins County as not having several different law enforcement agencies, all with jurisdictional boundaries, but as an area that has dozens of police officers available to it at any one given time.
Now, I'm not talking about consolidation of agencies or departments. I am talking about integration of services.
LS: Wouldn't people in the Village of Dryden or Cayuga Heights say, 'We have our police, why should my tax dollars go to service Lansing?'
BR: I would not expect someone from Dryden that's answering a call to drive all the way to Lansing. I'm talking about places that are in close proximity. The answer to that is that yes, there are people who pay particular taxes. In my case, in addition to County taxes I do pay village taxes. So I would expect that our village police stay primarily in the Village of Groton.
Having said that, everyone pays county taxes. You are a public service official, regardless of what jurisdiction you happen to work in. We need to have a mentality where public service is expected everywhere, not just in your particular jurisdiction. These sorts of agreements can be achieved and it's my firm belief that they have to be achieved.
We are not in an era where, from a taxpayer's point of view, you can expect to appreciably increase the size of any agency. As a matter of fact you struggle to keep your current staffing levels, or in some cases staffing levels have gone down. So I see no other way but for different law enforcement jurisdictions to work cooperatively. Because, again, we're serving the public and the public expects that.
We don't want to start setting policies where we're in essence going backwards, and making policy that's going to make it even more difficult to serve the public. These services have got to work both ways, as well, simply because the Sheriff is elected for all of Tompkins County. The City of Ithaca is in Tompkins County. So, those shared services have got to work both ways. For those folks that are concerned that their own tax dollars are going outside of the area where they pay those taxes, that concern is negated by the fact that I would also encourage things to happen the other way. Those services would be actually shared.
There is one big example where they would have a valid argument about 'why are my tax dollars going out there?'
Currently the Sheriff's Office does little to no narcotics investigation. The explanation, as I understand it, as to why they are not doing those sort of investigations is that their investigators are overloaded with other criminal complaints such as burglaries, and larcenies, assaults, things of that nature. So they don't have the personnel available to investigate narcotics activity.
I know from experience that narcotics investigations are very time consuming. For lack of a better term, it takes a while to do the dirty work. Many times the investigations are spread out over months. Currently the City of Ithaca's police force, and in particular their special investigative unit, does the majority of their narcotics investigations outside of the City of Ithaca. The reason, if one thinks about it, is fairly simple. They aggressively go after narcotics dealers.
Narcotics dealers don't like two things: they don't like their door being broken down, and they don't like going to jail. So they don't keep their drugs in the City of Ithaca for that reason. They do a lot of their dealing in the city, but they live out in the county. Why do they do that? Because nobody's going to bother them.
So when an investigation is done, it's done out in the County in large part. And when a culmination of a narcotics investigation takes place, generally it results in a search warrant conducted out in the County. The County has got to participate in narcotics investigations.
What the current Sheriff may not realize, through no fault of his own, but simply because he doesn't understand the relationship between narcotics and crime... yes, you have an investigative force that is very busy investigating a lot of property crimes and things of that nature. Who are the people that are committing the property crimes? They are the people, in may cases -- I know this because I'm the one who had to interview crime suspects almost on a daily basis. And when you get to the root cause of a lot of crimes, it comes back to some sort of substance abuse. In many cases it's a chemical dependency or drugs.
LS: The commit the property crimes to pay for their drugs?
BR: Sure. They have to sustain themselves somehow, and they have to be able to get what their body is telling them it needs. So they're the ones out there committing a large portion of that crime. So in essence, what you are doing is chasing your tail. You're running around investigating crimes that are committed by people that, if you would work on narcotics investigations and get those people arrested, get them into some sort of jail or some other treatment program -- those types of investigations should be done cooperatively and jointly.
Under my administration at the Sheriff's Office I will insist that narcotics investigations be investigated on a county-wide basis, using a county-wide drug task force to combat that. Again, you're talking about criminals who have no regard for jurisdictional lines.
LS: We hear the helicopters going over our house. We know they're looking for drugs.
BR: Oh, sure. So why should the police? Why strap yourself (to the limited jurisdiction)? And it's really not fair to the citizens of Ithaca to be paying their narcotics investigators to spend the majority of their time outside of the City of Ithaca. They feel as though they have to do that because these folks are coming into the City of Ithaca to conduct their business. So they really have no choice.
I was an investigator, and numerous times I would answer a call from someone who would suspect or actually have information that one of their neighbors was involved in drug activity. As I would be talking to them it would become clear that this location was outside of the city of Ithaca. Following protocol, I would say, 'I want to thank you for this information. This sort of intelligence normally ties together with other investigations, or it can. But you need to report this to the proper jurisdiction, which is the Sheriff.'
They would comment, 'Well, we did call the Sheriff. We were told that they don't conduct drug investigations and I need to call the City of Ithaca Police Department.' That happened time and time again.
LS: Do you think the Sheriff's Department is adequately funded for today?
BR: Yes. In fact, I look forward to going into that position and evaluating staffing levels, how and why purchases are made, and with an eye toward efficiency. I think I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't look for ways to not add to funding, but to decrease it. That's your duty to the taxpayers and that's one of the areas I'm certainly going to look at and emphasize.
LS: We already talked about road patrol...
BR: I wanted to point out that, being in local law enforcement as long as I have been, you get to know other law enforcement officers. I know many of them even though I didn't work with them directly. I know many of the sheriff's deputies, certainly all of the sheriff's investigators, and even the administrators.
I think the women and men that work at the Sheriff's Department are very good officers. Their job is very difficult, just given the vastness of the area. I want to be able to help them to do their job better, and to help instill a mentality in them: don't view yourselves as an isolated agency, but as a larger group of law enforcement officers county-wide. And don't be afraid to ask for help and don't be afraid to render help.
LS: What do you think needs to be done about the jail? Do you think the State is asking for too much capacity? Is there some in-between level? Where do you stand on that?
BR: I was not privy to the process as to how they came up with their recommended capacity. I am aware that a certain number of beds has been suggested, if not mandated by the State. Suffice it to say the State is asking for an appreciably larger capacity than what it currently has. I believe that that issue is going to be revisited by the County Legislature, either by mandate or by choice. But odds are that it's going to have to be revisited at some point.
The position of Sheriff is simply one of providing accurate information to the legislature so that a decision can be made in that area. Whatever decision is made is obviously going to effect funds for the Sheriff's Department and their budget. Aside from the additional costs of constructing a larger jail, you're also going to need additional funding for personnel to work in that jail.
That needs to be weighed against current costs associated with boarding out of prisoners. And that's certainly a difficult decision that's going to need to be made by the county legislators.
As it pertains to the Sheriff, and particularly the incumbent, what I do have a problem with... now bearing in mind that the Sheriff has no direct ability to control the amount of inmates he has at any particular time, when the incumbent first ran for this office he suggested that the previous administration was not administering the jail as efficiently as it could be, and that he would do a better job. At that time the County had applied for a waiver from the State to increase the internal capacity of the jail.
He was elected to that position, and during those first four years those waivers were put into place. And board-out costs were down. During his reelection bid four years later he proclaimed, 'I am responsible for controlling these board-out costs.' Since that time those waivers have been pulled by the State and we are now at a point where board-out costs have reached their highest level ever. One county legislator indicated to me that board-out costs will be in the neighborhood of three quarters of a million dollars this year.
I have a problem with, in essence, somebody wanting to publicly take credit for reducing board out costs -- and that's fine if you want to do that. I know he has no direct control over the amount of inmates you have -- if you want to take credit for that on the front end, then shouldn't you take blame for that on the back end? That's a legitimate question that the public needs to think about.
LS: How do you stand on Alternatives To Incarceration (ATI)? That's the hot potato in Tompkins County politics.
BR: Sure it is.
LS: Some people say that the lack of accountability is what's wrong with the program. But as a working policeman in the area you must have some anecdotal experience of whether it works, or when it works. So how do you stand on that?
BR: I guess the total concept of Alternatives To Incarceration in my view is still a work in progress, and still somewhat in its infancy. I will say that philosophically I agree with the concept.
Again, I like to break things down quite simply. Simply put, there are criminals and there are people that commit criminal acts based on a certain behavior, where they might not otherwise commit those acts. And I'm referring to things like chemical dependency, alcoholism, things of that nature.
The justice system as a whole should be geared towards correcting behavior. Now, society has said if it's strictly criminal behavior that the way to correct that is through the correctional system, or jail.
LS: Including the parole system as well, right?
BR: Sure, all levels including probation, parole, things of that nature. Maybe I can explain it best by explaining to you how I as an investigator used to go about interviewing suspects of crimes. When interviewing them I simply stated to them what crime I believed that they committed. I quickly said I am not concerned about the crime you committed as much as why you committed that crime. I wanted to know the reason you committed it.
In essence I'm not even giving them a chance to deny that they committed that crime, I want to know why. What's going on in your life that caused you to commit this crime. Many times that answer was some sort of substance abuse, be it narcotics or alcohol. That part of the interview was much more difficult to obtain... once they were able to admit, not only to me but to themselves, that yes, this substance abuse was the problem, then when you revisit the crime it's much easier for them to explain how it is that they committed the crime.
You have to report what was the root cause of this criminal act that took place? The root cause was not that they were a criminal. It was the fact that they had a chemical dependency, and it was this chemical dependency that caused them to commit the crime.
If that's the case, in my view they are not a criminal. They are a person who has a problem that caused them to commit a criminal act. Those people need to correct the root behavior. Alternatives To Incarceration's drug court is a perfect way to do that. From a law enforcement standpoint we should encourage that process to work, because we don't want to have to deal with that person again. Time saved in dealing with that person can be better spent in some other area.
(Photo courtesy of the Robison campaign)
LS: I don't want to get too far off the Sheriff's input into ATI, but I do want to ask about accountability. The people who have criticized the program to me the most fiercely have said there is no accountability attached to it, so you don't really know what recidivism there is. You don't really know how effective the program is. Would greater accountability help a sheriff?
BR: It may help you in planning. Certainly planning as an enforcement tool. You're dealing with individuals, so if an individual does not successfully correct whatever behavior it is that caused him to get into the system in the first place, then one would reasonably expect that you will come in contact with that person again. And you need to know that. You need to know who that person is. You also need to plan for the possibility that they will come back into your fold, in this case the county jail.
I can understand, given the relative newness of this whole concept how difficult it is to gauge recidivism in these programs. I know that they're working on it. They're trying to come up with concrete numbers, percentages, things of that nature. And at some point they have to attack it from a cost effectiveness angle.
As another county department head that would affect me. I would hope that all county entities are continually doing a cost benefit analysis in everything they do.
Some things you can't put a price on. Let's take the person that has committed multiple crimes before getting caught. They go through the program, and if they're successful they have directly effected my ability to have our personnel go on and do other things.
If they're unsuccessful, then that same person is going to go out and commit a number of crimes before they're apprehended again and brought back into the system.
From a law enforcement standpoint it's certainly beneficial for those kinds of programs to be successful. Any way for the Sheriff's office to help with the concept, they should do it.
LS: What else do you think readers will want to know about your campaign?
BR: I've spent my entire adult life in public service, and particularly in public safety. Never has my job been effected by anything other than duty as a public servant. Not political influences, not biases of any sort, be it race, gender, sexual preference. That's the only way a law enforcement agency can be.
I know who I work for. I work for the public. I want to hear public concern. I want to operate a very open, very transparent department. If there are suggestions or concerns from any member of the public, any public agency, be it a human service agency, or law enforcement agency... I want to hear about that.
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