ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Lawmakers on the Public Safety Legislative Task Force spent much of December 1 hearing a now-familiar message from law enforcement, families and community members: crime feels “overwhelming,” children are being pulled into violence at younger ages, and New Mexico’s pretrial release system isn’t working the way people think it does.
This task force was made of all Republican members, but representatives from the Office of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and former members from the United States Attorney’s Office were present to have a discussion about the crime in New Mexico. The talk included discission with 13th Judicial District Attorney Barbara Romo, whose district includes Cibola, Sandoval and Valencia counties.
The day-long hearing focused on juvenile crime, drug trafficking and repeat offenders, with testimony from Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, retired state and federal law enforcement officials, a mother who lost her son to fentanyl, local coaches and top prosecutors – including 13th Judicial District Attorney Romo.
“Average Age Used to be 14 or 15. Now We’re Seeing Seven.”
Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen opened with a blunt assessment of shifting gang activity and youth crime.
Allen said gangs that once fought each other are now working together, particularly around narcotics trafficking, and that his office is struggling with the sheer volume of cases.
On juveniles, he warned that the system is “empowering juvenile crime,” saying the average age of youth offenders has dropped dramatically.
“It used to be average age of 14, 15 years old. Now we’re seeing seven,” Allen said.
He linked youth offending to family instability and “adverse childhood experiences,” arguing that rehabilitation must be mandatory in serious cases.
“We have to have mandatory rehabilitation standards for high crimes and make sure they will be productive when released back to our community,” he said. “They cannot be allowed to come out and reoffend.”
Allen said Bernalillo County juvenile facilities are often only about 65% full, and noted that his agency does not control juvenile detention decisions. Under current matrices, he said, youth picked up for auto theft are often released shortly after booking, and he has body-camera footage of juveniles openly saying they expect to be released and “don’t care about crime.”
“I’ve told people for two years now: the community is going to be in an uproar when we have a juvenile who was not held accountable get into a use-of-force situation with my deputies,” Allen warned.
On bail reform, Allen acknowledged why changes were originally made — to prevent people from being jailed simply because they could not afford cash bail — but said the pendulum has swung too far.
He said he has “hundreds of cases where people are kept out of prison,” including suspects arrested in other states, extradited back to New Mexico, and then released.
“Combat Environment” for Deputies, Growing Concern Over Attacks on Police Sen. Craig Brandt (R– Rio Rancho) pressed Allen about conditions on the street.
“Criminals don’t wear uniforms,” Brandt said, asking whether deputies are stepping into “a combat environment” that the public can’t see.
“I would say as much,” Allen responded, noting that his department is about 95 percent staffed but faces attrition and high call volume. He said growing hostility toward law enforcement has translated into “an increase in specific attacks on police.”
Asked whether drug dealers whose sales lead to overdose deaths are murderers, Allen answered simply: “Yes, sir.”
Little League Coach Cleaning Needles Off Ballfields at 6 A.M.
The task force then heard from people dealing with crime in everyday settings — including youth sports.
Joshua Price, a Little League coach, described getting up at 6 a.m. to walk Albuquerque ballfields before games, picking up syringes so a child doesn’t “get pricked by a needle.”
Price said he and other volunteers repeatedly hear from city leaders that “everything is getting better, don’t worry,” but their lived experience does not match that message.
He said coaches have been told to move their teams to other fields to avoid drug use and encampments, but “every field in Albuquerque has that issue.” When officers are called, he said, people often leave before police can arrive, citing long response times and heavy call volume.
Lawmakers thanked the coaches for checking and cleaning the fields, acknowledging that volunteers are acting as an unofficial front line on public safety for children.
A Mother’s Story One of the most emotional testimonies came from Kelly Op, who recounted losing her son – a former Marine – to a counterfeit fentanyl pill.
Her son, she said, entered the Marines, got clean and “was good” until he was stationed back at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, where she believes easy access to drugs and the stress of a traumatic incident pushed him back into addiction.
At one local party, three men entered and shot a friend. Her son’s training “kicked in,” and he managed to disarm one of the shooters. But his drug use escalated afterward.
He still held a full-time job, had a vehicle and a girlfriend. When his girlfriend overdosed and died, he finally went to his mother and begged for help. For three weeks, she cared for him at home while he detoxed — cleaning his vomit and diarrhea, spoon-feeding him and praying for help.
“He got better, we thought,” she said.
Before leaving, he blocked his former “friends,” but Op said the dealers in Albuquerque were “relentless” and waited outside his workplace. He relapsed and eventually moved to Michigan to be with family and escape the environment.
There, he checked himself into rehab, led some groups, and “held his head high again” after nearly a year of sobriety. Then COVID-19 hit. Op said forced isolation and extra government money created new temptations. A sobriety partner brought alcohol; he kicked her out, then called someone and obtained heroin.
It was not heroin. “It was counterfeit — 100 percent fentanyl that came in from the border through Detroit,” she said.
Her son died. She told lawmakers he had wanted to be a father and “would never, ever have wanted to put me through this pain,” and that stigma kept the family from telling others or asking for help.
“The stigma of addiction is so intense,” Op said. “When your child dies this way, a parent can go crazy with the ‘I wish I would have’ and the what ifs. It’s my sincere hope that by speaking out someone, somewhere will be helped.”
She said drug dealers are “directly handing poison to our children” and “walk away scot-free from justice,” urging lawmakers to hold low-level dealers accountable when their drugs kill.
“The War on Drugs Was Lost Decades Ago” In a panel on drug trafficking and distribution, retired FBI Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda and retired New Mexico State Police officer Rudy Mora described the challenges of fighting cartels and cross-border crime.
Mora, who has worked national interdiction assignments and spent significant time on the southern border, said cartels exploit gaps in manpower and timing.
He told legislators that people “just walk across the border” when law enforcement leaves an area after an encounter. He said Mexican authorities “are trying their best,” but the flow continues.
Bujanda shifted to youth prevention, saying there are “no consequences for our students anymore.”
“Something is wrong with the kids’ psyche,” he said. “They will not respect their parents until they respect law enforcement.”
He praised the D.A.R.E. program and argued that law enforcement “has to be in elementary schools,” which he said is not happening at the level it once did.
Both urged lawmakers to strengthen tools for seizing drug money from cartel operations, saying the state needs more effective statutes to confiscate proceeds.
Several lawmakers on the panel agreed that “the war on drugs was lost decades ago,” with Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas Martinez saying, “We need to restrategize.”
Mora also pointed to jurisdictional issues involving tribal and Pueblo police that can complicate investigations and prosecutions.
Governor’s Office Points to Repeat offenders, Guns and SB 166
In a segment on repeat offenders, Ben Baker, representing Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office, said the governor’s team conducted a 16-county listening tour after what he called the “failed” 2024 special session.
He said they repeatedly heard that people have lost faith that arrests will lead to meaningful consequences.
“Violent criminal behavior by repeat offenders, especially violent offenders, is not a constitutional issue. It should not be political in nature,” Baker told lawmakers.
He said Bernalillo County does not have the capacity to hold everyone with active warrants, and that warrants are “a command, not a suggestion.” In many communities, he said, the number of people wanted on warrants likely exceeds local detention capacity.
Baker highlighted Senate Bill 166, which sought to change the legal definition of being a danger to oneself or others in civil commitment and related proceedings. The bill passed the Senate but was tabled on a 5–4 vote in its first House committee.
He argued that New Mexico’s current legal framework makes it difficult to distinguish between people who need mental health or substance use treatment and those who are persistently violent offenders.
Baker also pointed to firearm cases:
• In 2024, he said, New Mexico set a record for prosecutions of felons in possession of a firearm: 157 cases.
• Despite that, he said the average time served was less than two years, suggesting that penalties are not strong enough to deter armed repeat offenders.
• He contrasted that with federal law, where felonin- possession cases often carry 10-year sentences and conviction rates above 90 percent.
On youth, Baker said the governor’s office has been tracking guns in schools since 2023 and juvenile arrests involving firearms. He said that in current data, about 76 percent of juveniles arrested have a gun on them, calling that probability “way too high.”
Baker also described an ongoing collaboration in Rio Arriba County involving 11 law-enforcement agencies and tribal governments that meet weekly to share information, saying the model is improving public safety in a geographically complex region and could be expanded elsewhere.
DA Romo: “The System Leaves out Common Sense” The final panel focused on the legal standards and practical barriers to holding repeat offenders.
Barbara Romo, District Attorney for the 13th Judicial District (Cibola, Sandoval and Valencia counties), told lawmakers there is “no consistency” in how judges across the state — and sometimes even within the same district — apply pretrial detention standards.
She focused on the “clear and convincing evidence” standard prosecutors must meet to hold someone before trial, which is higher than probable cause but lower than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Romo questioned why the standard jumps up at the detention stage when probable cause is sufficient to arrest, charge and indict.
“We have probable cause to arrest someone. We have probable cause to charge someone, to indict someone. And then if you want to keep someone in jail, it jumps up to clear and convincing. Why? There’s no logical reason for that,” Romo said.
Criminal judges, she noted, rarely deal with “clear and convincing” burdens in other contexts and have little case law to guide them. She said data from another district showed that decisions to detain in aggravated battery with a deadly weapon cases varied widely — 50 to 60 percent — depending on the judge, not the crime.
Romo shared a recent example from another district: a man indicted for repeatedly raping a girl from age seven to 14.
“I know you want him to be arrested. I want him to be arrested, too,” she recalled telling the family. “But this is the way the law is right now in New Mexico.”
She said it was “very, very unlikely” that a pretrial detention motion would be granted in that district, despite the severity of the alleged crime and the strength of the evidence.
Romo argued that the clear-and-convincing standard has, in practice, “almost become beyond a reasonable doubt” in many judges’ minds. She said judges have “become afraid to use their common sense.” Adding that the system is built with multiple protections already – including probable cause reviews after detention – making the extra burden unnecessary and confusing.
“I think the system leaves out common sense,” she said, adding that district attorneys are not supposed to argue based on “propensity,” but that patterns of behavior, such as escalating domestic violence, clearly matter.
She also flagged a gap in the law: some violent misdemeanors are not eligible for pretrial detention motions. She cited a Sandoval County case where a man charged with misdemeanor domestic violence was released, later tracked down his partner and killed her in a parking lot.
Romo suggested lawmakers consider allowing detention motions in certain violent misdemeanor cases where there is a clear pattern of escalating abuse.
DA Romo Describes Issues: Late notices, Thin Staffing, Ankle Monitors
Romo and other panelists also described practical problems that undermine pretrial detention efforts.
In one Valencia County homicide, Romo said the DA’s office learned after the fact that the suspect had been released. She later discovered:
• The magistrate had scheduled a conditions-of-release hearing, not a detention hearing.
• The DA’s office got notice at 9 a.m. the morning of the hearing.
• Law enforcement had not yet provided key evidence — including a video recording of the incident — that would have strengthened the detention motion.
“Once someone is released,” Romo said, it is “very hard” to get them back into custody later, because judges often say the defendant has not committed a new crime since their release.
On ankle monitors, Romo said they can be useful in some cases but are not a reliable safeguard for violent offenders.
If she had to check “yes or no,” she told Rep. Harry Garcia Martinez, she would say no — they are “not as effective as people think they are,” though “better than nothing” because they at least trigger an alert when cut off.
Martinez said he has been reviewing data showing violent offenders reoffending while on monitors and noted that in some cases it has taken more than 24 hours to respond when a monitor is removed — a delay he called “unacceptable.” He suggested lawmakers consider tightening how ankle monitors are used and monitored.
Next Steps for New Mexico
Lawmakers ended the day acknowledging that the conversation is heavily infused with politics, disagreements over guns, bail reform and legislative responsibility, but that the testimony was respectful.
Sheriffs, prosecutors and community members converged on one point: the current system leaves serious gaps in accountability for both juveniles and repeat offenders, and families feel those gaps in the form of trauma, death and daily fear.
For Cibola County and the 13th Judicial District, where DA Romo is tasked with implementing the same standards she criticized, the coming session will determine whether lawmakers alter the “clear and convincing” burden, expand detention eligibility for violent misdemeanors, or change how ankle monitors and civil commitment laws are used.