Our communities are paying the price for our broken criminal justice system, which is failing those with mental health problems and/or drug addiction. Shortly, the 2025 legislative session will be underway in Santa Fe. Like many others, I’m wondering whether our legislators will take action to fix the situation.
Here in Las Cruces, repeat offenders are responsible for innumerable crimes. Many repeat offenders are deemed incompetent to stand trial, so they are just released back onto the streets where they commit crime after crime after crime. For instance, from a public records request, one of the top repeat offenders in Las Cruces has over 120 charges for aggravated assault, drug dealing (meth), battery, trespassing, shoplifting and more.
Another top repeat offender has been charged 95+ times, with offenses including criminal trespass, possession of illegal drugs, assault, property damage, indecent exposure, shoplifting, battery on a peace officer and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. These are just a couple of examples, but there are dozens more. Twenty-eight of the top 40, or 70 percent, of the top repeat offenders in Las Cruces are homeless, given that Mesilla Valley Community of Hope is listed as their place of residence. I can drive around downtown and see several repeat offenders on the streets on any given day.
Meanwhile, families and businesses in Las Cruces are suffering the consequences. Businesses and homes are being vandalized, windows are being broken, property is being taken and vehicles are being stolen. Homeless people are camping out at businesses and homes, approaching people asking for money, scaring children, threatening people and leaving trash and feces all around. Drugged out people are wandering the streets, harassing people and leaving dangerous needles lying around where children can find them.
My own two teens have often ridden the city bus to a class in downtown Las Cruces. They’ve witnessed men behaving erratically, drug dealing in broad daylight and two vagrants outside their classroom window smoking crack or meth in the middle of the afternoon in full view of children as young as nine years old. Like many mothers, I am concerned for my children’s safety, especially in downtown Las Cruces, parking lots and city parks.
People are being harmed while trying to live peacefully and responsibly, such as Rosa Ortega, who was brutally attacked by a homeless person in broad daylight while walking to the grocery store. Another example is a yoga teacher in downtown Las Cruces, who was attacked with rocks thrown at her car and threatened with being raped and killed. Less than a year ago, LCPD Officer Jonah Hernandez was murdered while responding to a trespassing call, leaving behind his wife and two young children.
It is not compassionate to allow people to continue destroying their own lives and health with drugs; and it is the duty of government to ensure that these people are not allowed to continue destroying our community.
The New Mexico Legislature must enact laws to allow “incompetent” offenders to be directed into treatment, for the good of all. Currently, part of the problem is that the state’s definition for mental disorders does not include substance abuse disorder. This makes it very difficult to direct those who are addicted to drugs into the stabilizing treatment they need.
Furthermore, the current assisted outpatient treatment model is not enough. AOT is voluntary and, while it can work well for some offenders, it’s clearly not working for the top repeat offenders, many of
whom are violent and unstable. Much as we’d like to wish it wasn’t necessary, there must be a mechanism for involuntary commitment and treatment of those who are deemed incompetent.
The upcoming legislative session is a prime opportunity for change. Both Democratic and Republican legislators need to stop politicizing the issues and find common ground so that our communities and our state can survive. Safety across our state should be a top priority for our legislators, but it remains to be seen whether they will actually take any meaningful action.
Sarah Smith is coleader of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance and vice chair of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action in Las Cruces.
