The high cost of crime taking toll on Clark County

And that enormous sum isn’t even the complete cost of crime.

“It’s all connected to crimes that are reported,” said Kellie Lapczynski, statistical compiler for the Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs. She compiles the data sent to her by police agencies around the state to create an annual report called Crime in Washington.

And, there are certain properties that don’t have value under FBI standards, Lapczynski said. An unendorsed check doesn’t have any value until it is forged, and stolen credit cards don’t have any value until they’re used.

“When somebody uses the card, it’s fraud. Whatever they fraudulently obtained by using the card is what has value,” Lapczynski said.

Not all crime involves property, of course. Another way to measure the burden of crime would be to total restitution ordered for victims of felony crimes to cover medical costs, get therapy or replace property. Last year, $2,320,916 in restitution was ordered by Clark County Superior Court’s 10 judges and two court commissioners.

Restitution is not ordered for every case, explained Baine Wilson, Clark County chief deputy clerk.

Property crime victims who get their property back wouldn’t request any restitution. And in drug cases, there’s often no restitution ordered.

“It’s usually the crimes against the person. And then it’s up to the person to decide if they want to request recoupment of anything they have lost,” Wilson said.

Typically, restitution comes in the form of small monthly payments made to the victims. Occasionally, large lump sum payments are sent. If the offender is on Social Security, the court cannot force them to make those payments, Wilson said.

Sometimes, people stop paying. That’s when victims call Superior Court, wondering where their money is. That can trigger more legal proceedings, including possible jail sanctions or arrest warrants, but may not result in any payments.

“Some of those (debts) will never be paid off,” Wilson said.

Crestline Elementary fire costly

This year, 17-year-old Dylan Mork was ordered to pay $2 million restitution for his role in starting a fire that destroyed Crestline Elementary School in east Vancouver. Will he be able to pay it off as interest accrues on the unpaid balance?

Under Washington state statute, he has a lifetime to pay.

The fire caused an estimated $22 million damage, according to Evergreen Public Schools — the costliest crime of 2013 by far. Of Evergreen’s total loss, $18 million was spent to demolish and remove the remnants of the old school and build a new school at the same site. The school district estimated other costs at $4 million, including the temporary school facilities used, additional student transportation, staff changes and moving to the new Crestline.

It was the first catastrophic loss from a fire in the school district’s 67-year history.

Real estate broker Mike Lamb said he’s had home sales fail when clients find out that a sex offender lives nearby, or if buyers get put off by crime statistics.

Occasionally, there are outlier events, a horrific crime of passion such as a murder-suicide, that shakes an otherwise quiet neighborhood.

“Some of it depends on the type of crime people care about,” Lamb said.

Crimes without a guilty party

It’s difficult to put a price tag on crime, particularly when some crimes are never prosecuted or even reported.

Crimes don’t always meet the “burden of proof.” In those cases, the crime isn’t prosecuted and the victims don’t get restitution. Mary Todd, a crime victim advocate with the Clark County prosecuting attorney’s office, said she got a call from a woman who had her car window smashed, which sprayed glass on her baby’s car seat. Without a guilty party, there wasn’t much Todd could do for her.

She referred her to Mindy Johnston, a crime victim advocate with Lutheran Community Services. The organization has money set aside to help people with the financial burden of being a crime victim, whether or not the crime is prosecuted.

People often don’t financially plan for crime to happen, Johnston said.

She gives the example of a man who was running from police and broke down a woman’s front door. The homeowner had a hard time understanding that she wouldn’t get immediate payment to fix the damage.

In one local case, a man broke into a woman’s ceramics studio, destroying thousands of dollars in pottery and getting blood everywhere. The man, a diabetic, said he didn’t remember anything and wasn’t held responsible for the damage. The studio owner got no restitution.

“In the legal realm, there just wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute it,” Johnston said. “There’s a sense of ‘How is this possible?’ “

In the eyes of the law, it’s as though the crime never occurred and the amount of money it represents was never lost.

In the end, estimating that Clark County residents lost $220 to crime while you read this story is conservative.

And among those crimes that are recognized and accounted for, the aftermath is more than dollars and cents.