Salem, Oregon – Oregon’s top law enforcement authorities announced a new statewide plan to fight organized crime that has been spreading over municipal and county lines. Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton and Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced the start of SPIRE, a pilot initiative that would help communities respond better and more coordinated to complicated crime networks.
Months of talks with families, local leaders, and public safety authorities across Oregon helped design SPIRE, which stands for Special Projects: Investigate, Respond, Enforce. Rayfield said that those talks made it evident that a lot of the crimes that hurt Oregonians today are done by well-organized groups that move swiftly, adapt easily, and often work in more than one area at a time. He said that local police departments don’t always have the money to keep up with these long-term, complicated cases.
Rayfield and Barton showed lawmakers the SPIRE framework during Legislative Days. They explained how the tool helps small and medium-sized agencies with problems they can’t solve on their own. Rayfield gave a number of instances of criminal activities that need unique investigative techniques and cooperation across agencies, such as illegal massage parlors, drug trafficking, theft of SNAP benefits, and large catalytic-converter networks. He stated that the residents of Oregon have been quite clear about demanding more action, and SPIRE is meant to satisfy that need.
One important thing Rayfield learned from his early discussions with sheriffs, police chiefs, and district attorneys was that the problems with public safety in Oregon are very different from one community to the next. Leaders said that the state needed a support structure, not something that would take the place of local sovereignty. Barton, who was a key player in creating the program, noted that the pilot has already shown how useful it is to connect state investigators with local teams.
SPIRE helps Oregon DOJ detectives, analysts, and prosecutors work together on cases that need more time and effort. The program can help with long-term monitoring, digital forensics, wiretaps, complex data analysis, and working together to enforce the law in more than one area. It is made to be able to grow, so it can handle either a small local case or a big regional investigation, depending on the threat.
The Washington County DA’s Office, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, and all of the county’s police departments are involved. Rayfield and Barton told lawmakers that they think the pilot would help them get long-term support, build up the state’s capacity, and make Oregon’s public safety network stronger overall.
They stressed that SPIRE is based on a basic idea: as criminal activities get more sophisticated, the state must respond with well-coordinated, long-term, and well-equipped investigative activity.
