CHRIS MORELLI/THE EXPRESS Clinton County District Attorney Dave Strouse spoke to the Lock Haven Kiwanis Club at its weekly lunch on Thursday afternoon at the Elks Lodge.

LOCK HAVEN — With a beefed up staff and a new focus on helping, rather than jailing, people who commit non-violent crimes, Clinton County District Attorney Dave Strouse is finding some success … and increased conviction rates.

Strouse spoke to a packed house at Thursday’s weekly Kiwanis of Lock Haven club luncheon at the Elks Lodge and talked about the “state of law enforcement” in the county.

The county’s chief law enforcement officer touched on a myriad of topics, including the expansion of specialty courts, prosecution rates, body cams for police officers and drug trends.

Here are some of the highlights from his speech:

Specialty Courts

According to Strouse, specialty courts have evolved over the past few years to now encompasses four separate programs: Drug Treatment Court; Veterans’ Treatment Court; Domestic Violence Fast-Track Treatment Court and Behavorial Health Treatment Court.

Strouse talked at length about the Domestic Violence Fast-Track Treatment Court, which is designed specifically for cases that involve alleged domestic violence with someone who doesn’t have a significant criminal history.

“It’s a very difficult area of the law to prosecute cases … they’re difficult because you’re usually talking about a family unit and an allegation of a crime being committed from one member of the family unit on another member of the family. What we typically see in cases like that are people who don’t testify, who refuse to testify. People who would rather show up to court and tell you that they lied when they talked to the police. People who will just disappear when it’s time to have a court hearing,” Strouse said.

According to Strouse, that forces the DAs office to go with the best option available — sometimes resulting in merely a summary-level harassment offense.

“You can get a fine of up to $300. That’s not really going to deter somebody if they’re in an abusive relationship or they’re an abuser themselves,” Strouse said.

With the fast-track treatment program, the alleged offender can be put directly into a treatment program. It requires 13 weeks of a “Men Against Abuse” program — a counseling and treatment program designed to combat domestic abuse.

The program is offered through the Crossroads Counseling Program.

The Behavorial Health Treatment Court is seeing a “staggering amount of people,” Strouse said.

Those in that court do not commit crimes of violence, he said, rather they have issues involving mental health, perhaps habitual bad behavior and also may have been unsuccessful in drug treatment court.

Police Body Cams

Strouse talked about the need for body cams on all members of law enforcement.

He said the cams can provide a visual recording of what officers see when they arrive on-scene, and thus become critical evidence in hard-to-prosecute cases.

He used the example of a case in Pine Creek Township where police officers arrived on scene and discovered a woman who had been involved in a physical altercation — she had blood on her face, red marks around her neck and bruises on her arms.

“She was crying and immediately all of that was captured on their body cams,” Strouse said. “When they said, ‘what happened?’ She said, ‘he’s going to kill me.’ That was the first thing she said.”

However, the woman ultimately refused to cooperate with the DA’s office and, in fact, she disappeared or fled and deleted all of her social media accounts.

“There was no sign of her whatsoever,” Strouse said.

But since the body cam footage at the scene existed, the DAs office was able to prosecute the case.

“Instead of having the case being thrown out, the defendant didn’t have a choice because we had video of his victim saying he was going to kill her. She said his name. There was no doubt that the woman feared for her life and was on the run. Ultimately, he pled guilty,” Strouse said.

As body cams become more prevalent, evidence-based prosecution is growing.

Strouse said he realizes not every municipality can afford body cams.

“They’re expensive. There is storage requirements for them. There’s video that you have to maintain,” Strouse noted.

For example, Lock Haven City Police do not have body cams, but would like them, Strouse said.

Prosecution Rates

Grant funding has increased for education about and prevention of sexual assault.

Importantly, that funding has allowed him to increase his staffing by way of a part-time prosecutor and detective.

Strouse said it has all helped with better prosecution rates.

Indeed, the local DA’s office achieved a 49 percent increase in Protection From Abuse or PFA convictions in 2019.

Incidents of domestic violence, he said, remain constant.

“The number of cases were identical. There were 44 domestic violence incidents in 2019 and 43 in 2018,” Strouse said.

Meanwhile, the prosecution rates for sexual assault increased by 24 percent in 2019.

“Those are positive numbers that show that these small changes have, hopefully, made a pretty significant impact,” Strouse said.

Strouse said that one of the tools in prosecuting sexual assaults are the formations of SAFE-T Centers. The Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Telehealth Center will facilitate the development of a locally-based sexual assault treatment team, consisting of nurses, advocates and community partners.

The Express on Feb. 5 featured a story on a new SAFE-T team at UMPC Lock Haven to enhance care for sexual assault victims.

Drug Abuse Trend

Strouse said that the latest drug trend in Clinton and surrounding counties is a rise in methamphetamine.

He cited the recent drug sweep that resulted in the arrest of up to 30 people to back up the claim.

“The No. 1 reason they were arrested was methamphetamine,” Strouse said. “It is prevalent in western Clinton County. It’s getting worse. I know the Northern Tier has been getting beat up with methamphetamine for a long time and we’re seeing it here, too. It’s probably our primary focus right now.”

Strouse said that Clinton County has a “very active” drug task force.

“They are very involved with the Attorney General’s office. The agents that they have assigned to our region spend 60 percent of their time in Clinton County,” Strouse noted.

The agents cover a 13-county radius. So why the focus on Clinton County?

“It’s because we have more people willing to do the work with them. We have law enforcement who is willing to cooperate with them and share the responsibility, so they’ve been here a lot,” Strouse said.