Fingers pointed at heroin for rise in felonies

Bannock County made history filing the most felonies ever in its history and it looks like history could be made again this year.

In 2015, 1,233 felonies were filed. The bulk of the felonies, 496, stem from drug-related crimes. So far this year 207 felonies have been filed, up from 179 in 2015.

Bannock County Prosecutor Steve Herzog said the increase is thanks to the popular, cheaper, opiate heroin. The drug was involved in 10 cases on average from January 2015 to February 2016.

“Opiate drugs have always been popular,” Herzog said. “Oxycodones, hydrocodones (for example), but they’ve become more and more difficult to obtain.”

Even with help coming from a new special assistant U.S. attorney coming to the region to help reduce crime rate, Herzog knows his office will keep busy. This is because most of the drug cases in the county deal with state law, and the special U.S. attorney will be dealing with federal cases.

“We’re still going to have a bounty of drug cases here in this office,” Herzog said.

Besides drug crimes, most of the other charges in the felonies deal with stealing property, ranging from burglaries to grand theft.

Chief Deputy Jim Dalley with the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office said a high percentage of those crimes stem from the drug crimes.

“A lot of times people will have good jobs and the habit will get the best of them,” Dalley said. “They lose their job and then they have no means to get the drug, so they have to resort to theft.”

Working with the Sheriff’s Office for 33 years, Dalley said it can be hard fighting the problem with limited resources.

He said there has to be a united front against it.

“It’s a multi-agency, multi-level of people getting involved for us to help solve the problem,” Dalley said.

When asked for a ballpark number to include drug misdemeanors and other charges in the total, Herzog said the number could double.

Meth was another major drug cited in the felonies. Oxycodone and marijuana round out the top four.