Pubdate: Sun, 07 Dec 2003
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2003 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Tom Lasseter, David Stephenson
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'BASICALLY, THERE'S NOTHING THIS SMALL OF A COUNTY CAN DO'

When bigger cities don't crack down, cash-strapped Kentucky counties are 
often left to try to stop the flow of drugs at the receiving end.

For many counties, when state or federal help doesn't come, there's little 
deterrent to the drug trade.

In McCreary County, David Perkins' home, there are no city police 
departments. The sheriff's office has a total of nine people. At the 
beginning of next year, a federal schools grant that's funding the salary 
of five of those officers will end, said Sheriff Clarence Perry.

Some help is coming. McCreary and 28 other rural counties will share in a 
federally funded program, UNITE, designed to put 33 new drug officers into 
southeastern Kentucky.

But on its own, there's not a whole lot the sheriff's department can do 
about drugs being shipped in, said Perry, who took office this year.

"We know it's coming in, but catching them bringing it in is a problem for 
us. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough resources," Perry said.

The sheriff spoke from behind a weathered metal desk that sat next to an 
old sink. On a door to his office, the words "custodial engineering office" 
had been painted over.

"Basically, there's nothing this small of a county can do," he said. "If we 
find out about someone, maybe we can make a traffic stop."

Perry's predecessor, Regal Bruner, wasn't as pessimistic, but said, 
"because there's not enough money available to hire the number of officers 
that are necessary, well, we were just too tied up, really, to devote as 
much time as we should have on drugs."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman