7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2017
County: Juvenile referrals are made
by law enforcement after arrests
Continued from Page 1
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Officers confront an individual playing the part of an
active shooter.
Training: ‘Communication is
key because it’s mass chaos’
Continued from Page 1A
Officers attended class-
room lectures at Knappa
High School on mass shooter
response before heading to
nearby Hilda Lahti and arm-
ing themselves with rifles
and pistols loaded with sim-
ulation rounds. The officers
practiced moving in forma-
tions and clearing hallways
and rooms.
Craig Miller, a maritime
enforcement specialist with
the Coast Guard, spent Mon-
day as a responder and Tues-
day as a mass shooter stopped
by responding officers.
Local agencies would
respond to a mass shooter
event on base along with the
Coast Guard’s security teams.
“Communication is key,
because it’s mass chaos,”
Miller said.
Around 600 police from
more than 30 agencies
responded to the shooting at
Columbine High School in
Colorado in 1999, said Sgt.
Jason Hoover during a class-
room session. But responses
in rural areas often depend on
whoever is closest, regardless
of agency, and officers don’t
have time to wait for backup.
“You may be on your
own, and chaos will reign,”
Hoover said. “Your No. 1 job
at that point is to reach the
threat” to limit casualties.
Participants had to make
life-or-death decisions to
engage shooters surrounded
by innocents.
“You rely on muscle
memory,” Deputy Siscilee
Gouge said of making such
split-second decisions.
Stephanie Baldwin is a
library assistant at Knappa,
where her own children
attend school. She played a
victim fleeing and directing
officers toward the shooter,
while her husband, Nathen,
a sheriff’s deputy, was one of
the responding officers.
She spent the first scenario
hunched in a corner, watching
how it played out. Listening
to the approaching gunshots
and thinking of her co-work-
ers and children in such a sit-
uation was gut-wrenching,
she said.
“It made it too real,” she
said. “I saw all the kids art-
work on the walls as we
worked, along with my own
kids’, and it was painful to
think of any of those chil-
dren being harmed. But it
did make me realize that in
an event I need to have good
information to pass on.”
Nathen Baldwin said it
was especially difficult to
pass his children’s classrooms
and wife’s office, knowing
they could be victims.
“I feel it was good for my
wife to experience this train-
ing,” he said. “We as a family
commonly discuss the possi-
bility of these horrible events
happening in our community,
and what our options would
be. I feel this training helped
Stephanie better prepare for
such incidents.”
several indicators, from health
and child welfare to financial
stability and education.
“When I look at the report,
and look at all of the different
data, I would say it’s unfortu-
nate that we’re in a high referral
rate county, but I wouldn’t say
I’m surprised that we are,” said
Greg Engbretson, the director
of the Clatsop County Juvenile
Department.
Obvious patterns
The county’s juvenile refer-
ral rate in 2016 — 25.8 per
1,000 young people up to age
17 — was considerably higher
than the statewide rate of 13.6.
For Engbretson, the report
outlined obvious patterns that
distinguish Clatsop from coun-
ties with lower juvenile referral
rates.
Clatsop was ranked 34th last
year in third-grade math profi-
ciency, 27th in eighth-grade
math proficiency, 25th in both
third and eighth-grade English
language arts proficiency, 25th
in graduation, 24th in teen preg-
nancy and 29th in homeless
students.
“These are not ‘excuses’
for the county’s high rate of
juvenile referrals but provide
some background information
regarding why they may be
what they are,” Engbretson said
in an email.
Clatsop has long had a
hard-drinking culture that can
influence underage drinking.
The Oregon Student Wellness
Survey has found that county
teenagers have higher rates
of alcohol use than the state
average.
Over the past few years,
after marijuana was legalized
for recreational use in July
2015, the county has also seen
a spike in marijuana-related
offenses among young people.
“This has been pretty clear
to us, that ever since some of
the marijuana legislation has
changed — the laws in Oregon
— that we have definitely seen
an increase of juvenile refer-
rals for marijuana,” Engbret-
son said.
Oregon juvenile referral rates by
county, 2016 (Rate per 1,000 youth, ages 0-17.)
County
Baker
Malheur
Clatsop
Wasco
Wheeler
Morrow
Curry
Crook
Deschutes
Tillamook
Klamath
Hood River
Lake
Douglas
Umatilla
Jefferson
Columbia
Jackson
Linn
Union
Wallowa
Marion
Harney
Josephine
Lane
Gilliam
Polk
Lincoln
Grant
Clackamas
Yamhill
Coos
Benton
Washington
Multnohmah
Sherman
Oregon
2016 total
population
Referrals
2016
Referrals
2015
Percent
change
16,059
30,439
38,632
26,115
1,344
11,274
22,713
22,570
181,307
26,143
66,443
23,232
7,837
108,457
76,456
23,080
50,785
216,527
122,849
26,087
6,946
336,316
7,292
85,904
369,519
1,854
81,823
47,806
7,158
408,062
105,035
63,761
89,385
582,779
799,766
1,710
36.4
27.5
25.8
25.7
25.4
25.3
25.1
24.8
24.6
23.7
21.6
20.4
20
19.3
18.7
18.6
17.9
17.6
16.9
16.7
15.4
14.8
14.4
14.2
14.1
13.7
13.6
12.8
12.1
11.8
11.6
10.7
10.7
9.7
8.7
6.2
24
28.1
24.7
30.2
15
20.4
28.5
32
23.9
27.2
22.8
24.8
18.5
19.8
20.2
20.9
14
19.6
16.9
14
14.2
16.1
10.8
15
14.4
14.1
12.4
13.4
19.9
12.3
15.7
13.5
10.8
10.4
9.9
16.5
52%
-2
4
-15
69
24
-12
-23
3
-13
-5
-18
8
-3
-7
-11
28
-10
0
19
8
-8
33
-5
-2
-3
10
-4
-39
-4
-26
-21
-1
-7
-12
-62
4.09 million
13.6
14.7
-7
Source: Children First for Oregon
District Attorney Josh Mar-
quis said the county’s juve-
nile referral rate should not be
viewed in isolation or as a sign
of disproportionate juvenile
punishment.
“It may be that the adults are
paying more attention to kids in
Clatsop County than in some
more urban parts of the state,”
Marquis said in an email. “I’m
not sure that’s it, but factors like
Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group
that can affect the rate.”
Declines
Across Oregon, juvenile
referral rates have declined,
part of a public-policy choice
by the juvenile justice system
over the past two decades to
steer young people away from
detention.
Some in law enforcement
have complained the approach
has papered over troubling lev-
els of juvenile property crime
and drug abuse and encour-
aged counties to dismiss refer-
rals without sanctions or
supervision.
Marquis said advocates like
Children First for Oregon have
clearly put a “negative value”
on juvenile referrals. The
county data books are financed
by a grant from the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, which has
sought to reduce juvenile deten-
tion nationally in favor of more
family-focused intervention.
Juvenile referrals are made
by law enforcement after
arrests. Juvenile departments
decide after intake — and often
after consultation with prosecu-
tors — whether to review and
close a case, take some type
of informal action, or formally
petition the court.
In Clatsop County last year,
72 percent of juvenile referrals
were handled informally, a fig-
ure that matches the statewide
share. About a third of referrals
involved accountability agree-
ments that could trigger future
consequences if violated, while
the others were reviewed and
closed.
Of the referrals that were
petitioned to court, most of
the juveniles who were found
delinquent received probation
or formal sanction, and only a
handful faced placement in a
youth correctional facility or
residential treatment program.
Tonia Hunt, the executive
director of Children First for
Oregon, said the juvenile refer-
ral rate category in the report
“reflects the community’s
involvement with youth and
youth engagement with law
enforcement.
“Higher referral numbers
don’t necessarily mean that
communities have more crimi-
nality,” she said in an email. “It
could mean that there is more
interaction with law enforce-
ment. This data provides a base-
line to examine patterns and
what might be driving changes
or variations in each county.”
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