As the number of drug prosecutions falls across the country, Arizona is confronting a remarkable surge in drug cases -- despite getting extra help from the Feds.
In the first four months of this fiscal year, drug prosecutions in Arizona have jumped 202 percent since 2008, while the rest of the country has seen a 17 percent drop, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which oversees federal law-enforcement programs.
Of nearly 16,000 federal prosecutions of drug charges estimated for 2010, a 12 percent decline from the previous year, Arizona will account for more than 2,274, a 36 percent hike from the year earlier, according to TRAC.
But federal prosecutors, who are struggling to cope with a rapid rise in immigration cases along the Southwest border, turn down prosecutions in Arizona more than anywhere else in the country, despite an increase in funding and staffing and looser restrictions on when they can help.
The U.S. attorney's office in Tucson, which accounts for the highest number of drug cases among all four Arizona offices, increased its staff to 145 last year, from 110 in 2008, and it reached 149 by the end of March. And federal prosecutors in Arizona last year dropped its policy of declining to press charges against suspects caught with less than 500 pounds of contraband.
But last year, federal prosecutors turned down 1,368 prosecutions, and are on pace to deny 1,287 cases this year, an increase of 113 percent from 2008 when there were 603 rejections.
Federal prosecutors, in turning down cases, commonly cite a lack of prosecutorial or investigative resources available to their office for handling the matter.
"The large number of drug cases being turned away suggests that there are serious stresses on some federal prosecutor offices," the report read. "A likely major source for these strains is the powerful flood of immigrations that has washed over the region." - FOX News Story
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