Bismarck/Divide County, North Dakota: North Dakota’s law enforcement officials are struggling to keep up with a surge in the number of serious offences following the oil boom as thousands of out-of-state petroleum workers flood the state.
“We have had a dramatic increase in drugs, in crime, in prostitution, human trafficking. It’s just things we never thought about in the past,” said State Senator Connie Triplett, who admits the state has been “behind the curb” in tackling crime.
“We have been increasing law enforcement every session since this [oil boom] started … We have beefed up our state highway patrol, we have given grants to local sheriffs and city police officers,” she added.
But the grants have not been in line with the surging crime rate that is filling many of the state’s jails.
Divide County, which is just 9.6km from the Canadian border and lies on the fringes of North Dakota’s oil boom, has seen its jail bill skyrocket. The local sheriff, Lauren Throntveit, said he recently paid $135,000 (Dh495,848) off its 2014 jail bill but still has $150,000 outstanding. Ten years ago the county’s jail bill was just $7,000. Divide County, with a population of just 2,300, does not have a jail. Instead the sheriff has to transport criminals at least 80km away to Williston, a city at the heart of the boom and facing its own surging crime rate.
Throntveit said bar fights and domestic abuse cases have surged, with most crimes committed by individuals who do not have a fixed address in the state.
“We are now experiencing what people in other urban areas are dealing with,” said Kay Garbel, co-owner of a furniture store just down the road from the county’s sheriff’s office.
In Divide County, drug crimes have increased 200 per cent since 2011, according to the sheriff’s office, which said it is now tackling imports of Mexican-made methamphetamine.
Garbel said the surge in crime was “to be expected” as thousands headed to the state to work in the oil industry.
But the state’s legislature and law enforcement officials have been caught off-guard and are yet to find the resources needed.
“To think that there is now a problem with human trafficking in Williston is just something we never could have envisioned,” said State Senator Mac Schneider.
In an effort to explain the surge in crime Triplett said: “Whenever you have a lot of high wages going to unattached young men other things follow.”
But Senators also claim crimes are not being committed by the state’s thousands of new petroleum workers, instead they say the oil boom has attracted opportunities and criminals.
“Many don’t work in the oil and gas business. They come along and prey on the situations out there,” said State Senator David Rust.
