Outsourcing policing to cameras and lay folk, in rural southern Oregon

I've written in the past about the challenges of rural policing (read more here from 2013), and I've also written about the fiscal challenges facing rural southern Oregon--timber country (read more here (with embedded links) and here).  This Washington Post report brings the two themes together under the headline, "A small town can’t afford cops at night. So it’s turning to cameras watched by citizen patrols."  Antonia Noori Farzan writes:

For the residents of Cave Junction, a community of nearly 2,000 people near the rainy, forested California border, that means no law enforcement officers patrol the streets at night. The city doesn’t have its own police force, and deputies from the understaffed Josephine County Sheriff’s Office only patrol the area during daytime hours on weekdays, according to the Oregonian. Placing a call to 911 at night can mean waiting 45 minutes or more for someone to show up, and the area has experienced robberies and thefts tied to the local legal marijuana-growing industry.

So, last month, members of the Cave Junction City Council voted unanimously to try a new experiment in policing: Installing security cameras that will be monitored by a volunteer citizen patrol.

Needless to say, this raises some constitutional concerns, which are made fairly clear in the piece.  Here's a quote from the Cave Junction city recorder, Rebecca Patton, who said "hardcore criminals" can be identified easily just by looking.

They can identify them by the way that they dress, because they have a certain apparel that they wear all the time, or the way they walk. Sometimes they carry things all the time, it could be something as simple as a skateboard. They have learned how to identify these people very, very quickly, then they know how to respond.

Patton indicated that the volunteers have not received formal training though she said they may undergo background checks before they get access to the security camera footage.  The Oregon Justice Resource Center wrote on Twitter, “Civil rights violation incoming in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …".  I'm reminded of the lack of checks and balances often characteristic of local governments with few resources. As Patton comments elsewhere in the story, “Until we start paying a little bit more for our services, we’re going to get what we pay for."

I visited Cave Junction in 2018 en route to Oregon Caves National Monument, and you can see some photos from that trip here (the ones of the town, including marijuana dispensaries, are at the end of the post).  I have also written about the lack of policing outside daytime hours in my own hometown, and consequent crime, here, here and here.