A Legislative Finance Committee report said a way for New Mexico to try to alleviate its crime problems, it should seek to fix the root causes in a report about the crime situation in the state’s most populous county.

“New Mexico’s crime rates remain consistently above the national average, driven by high crime rates in Bernalillo County, which continue to limit the state’s potential,” the report states. “New Mexico could reduce crime by treating its root causes, such as addiction, increasing the certainty offenders will be caught and held accountable, and decreasing the likelihood current inmates will reoffend upon release.”

The state legislature appropriated about $820 million over the last three years to address crime. This money went towards prioritizing treatment, improving the swiftness and certainty of justice and providing for victim and community needs, the report states.

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These include $50 million to build the behavioral health workforce, $65 million for Medicaid provider rate increases, $259 million “to improve the swiftness and certainty of justice,” including $150 million for law enforcement recruitment and retention and $40 million for improving the criminal justice information system, the report states.

Further funding was allocated for violence intervention program grants and youth reemployment and apprenticeships.

On July 18, the legislature convened into a special session to deal with the public safety crisis in New Mexico.

The special session resulted in one bill passed that aside from funding the special session and providing funding for wildfire relief, appropriated funds to court-based behavioral health programs.

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This bill, HB 1, was just a small part of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s special session agenda.

Legislators said that many of the items on Lujan Grisham’s agenda were not ready in time for the special session. However, they were willing to discuss the bills during the 2025 regular session.

“Evidence-based prevention, diversion, and behavioral health treatment programs can help address the root causes of crime but are only available to a fraction of the people who could benefit from them. Crime is affected by various social and economic conditions such as poverty, lack of education, inaccessible housing, unemployment, lack of services for the mentally ill, and addiction,” the report states.

However, LFC research showed that the Bernalillo County criminal justice system has an accountability gap.

The LFC found there was a gap between arrests, criminal convictions and prison admissions. The punishments for these convictions, arrests and prison admissions are not keeping pace with criminal activity trends, the report states.

“This accountability gap is problematic because it means the criminal justice system is not effectively holding offenders accountable,” the report states. “Even during times of increasing crime rates in New Mexico, LFC research has found declining case clearance rates (percentage of reported crimes being solved), low prosecution rates, and low conviction rates.”

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This is a change from the 2018 report which showed “a relatively small proportion of criminal defendants (33 percent) were responsible for a majority of felony arrests (61 percent), suggesting a need for police and district attorneys to prioritize the arrest and conviction of the highest-risk offenders,” the report states.

The report shows that 74 percent of multiple-felony offenders eventually go to prison, it takes numerous alleged offenses before the offenders are prosecuted and convicted of a felony.

“Most felony cases are dismissed because of insufficient evidence collection or witness cooperation, which indicates New Mexico could reduce the accountability gap through initiatives and investments to improve evidence collection and witness cooperation in the highest-risk cases,” the report states.

LFC suggestions for crime mitigation

The LFC suggests that the legislature consider outlining minimal standards for pretrial services; require periodic validation of risk assessments and implement needs assessments for services; require rules for when and for whom a mandated 24-hour live monitoring pre-release via ankle monitor is appropriate; require reporting and use pretrial performance data to improve safety and report findings on public-facing dashboards; appropriate funding for the Administrative Office of the Courts to hire certified competency evaluators; and authorize the pharmacy board and the New Mexico Department of Health to make Medication Assisted Treatment available.

The LFC suggests the Administrative Office of the Courts to work with each judicial district court to increase participation in treatment courts and pre-prosecution diversion programs and provide public reports about pretrial decisions and outcomes.

The LFC suggests the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office report to the LFC on the effectiveness of its specialty units for prosecuting different case types and reducing case dismissal rates due to evidence collection issues, victim cooperation and witness cooperation and focus on diverting low-level offenders into treatment programs.

The LFC suggests Albuquerque Police Department recruit and retain the number of sworn law enforcement officers to meet staffing standards; work with Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office for joint patrols and outreach and staff field services and specialized detective units to work towards improving evidence collection and clearance rates.