Iron County Sheriff Discusses Rising Crime Rates Linked To Substance Abuse And Poverty

Iron County Sheriff Ken Carpenter was with us on the radio recently, to update the community on issues effecting law enforcement in the area. He was asked about the affects of poverty on crime in the county.

“Well, there's, there's just a lot of things. You know, drugs are obviously a big one. Substance abuse in general, whether it's alcohol or drugs,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter continued to explain the impact of substance abuse, “We arrest DUI’s every week. We arrest people for possession of drugs every week. The sheriff's association met on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, a week ago, and we met with several of our representatives and senators, we met with the governor and we met with a lot of the leaders from different parts of state law enforcement. One of them that we met with was Commissioner Jess Anderson from DPS and one of the things that he told us was that here in Utah, based on the pipelines that Highway Patrol interdicted, that 40% of those pipelines destination was Utah. Utah is becoming a hub for drug distribution. And one of the things that that he also pointed out to us was that Utah's overdose rate is rising at a rate of about 5%. When the rest of the nation's overdose is dropping by as much as 16%.”

The sheriff also touched on the growing concerns of the rise of fentanyl use, saying, “Part of the problem is fentanyl is so very addictive. When you look at like heroin or meth, you measure it in grams. When you measure fentanyl, you measure it in grains. So, if you took 7 grains of salt and have that equivalent in fentanyl, that's a lethal overdose. 7 grains. So when you start looking at the scale upon which fentanyl can become lethal, we can kill a lot of people really quick with fentanyl overdose.”

Carpenter also dispelled the notion that it is easier for criminals to hide in a rural area like Iron County. “People think that they can hide in a county like Iron County, but we always find them. It's a lot easier, I think, to hide in the city than it is in in a rural county, because rural counties, people are well aware of what's going on around them. We're blessed with a very good community and very public minded people. When things don't look right, then people call in and report it and we go out and investigate it. We find a lot of success to criminal enterprise because of observant citizens that call in something doesn't look right to them.”

The sheriff also had a warning for the community about a fraud situation going on now. “There's a lot of fraud that's going on throughout the nation and throughout the county. And one of the ones that's taking place right now is a person that calls somebody and tells them that they’re Sergeant so and so, or deputy so and so from the Sheriff's Office, and that you have a warrant out for your arrest. And that if you don't pay for this warrant using prepaid credit cards or something like that, they're going to send somebody to pick you up. That's not how it works. We won't ever do that. We serve warrants in person. So if there's a warrant we’re going to come to your door, it's going to be in person.”

Sheriff Carpenter also noted that child abuse continues to plague the county. “If it's reported to DCFS, then DCFS issues what's called a CANR, Child Abuse Neglect Report. That's issued to the investigating jurisdiction. Once we get that then we investigate those allegations in conjunction with DCFS. Sometimes it's hard because sometimes the victim isn't ready or willing to talk to us. Without those victim statements, a lot of times it's hard to be able to go anywhere with it. Detectives are investigating child abuse reports on a very, very frequent basis. I hate to see it.”

Carpenter said that all interviews with child abuse victims are held at the Iron County Children's Justice Center.

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Sheriff Carpenter also addressed the affect of mental health issues facing the department. You can listen to our discussion with the sheriff in the podcast below.