From community engagement by police to reviewing how protection-from-abuse orders are working, the four nominees for three seats as Lycoming County commissioner have ideas for how to address crime in the county.

“There needs to be greater cooperation” between county government and Williamsport government and the other municipal governments, Democratic nominee Mark Mussina said.

“One of the things we do really well here in drug court,” Mussina said. “We’re lucky here that we have it.”

He attributed much of the region’s juvenile crime to underlying socio-economic concerns.

“The best way for us to help these kids to stay out of trouble and stay out of a life of crime is to give them real opportunities in life,” Mussina said.

“I’ve talked to the police officers here,” Democratic nominee Denitra Moffett said, and was told county efforts to provide police officers with more mental health training stalled because instructors could not be found.

“Our police officers want mental health training,” she said. “The police chiefs I’ve talked to, the sergeants that I’ve talked to, all say we can bring somebody in, we just need commissioners to say, hey, this is how much money we’re giving you for it.”

“I’ve never been one to say let’s defund the police,” Moffett said. “I don’t think that’s going to solve anything. We need them.”

She said the answers are more on-the-job training, particularly mental health training and cultural training, citing the routine training she received while enlisted in the Army as an example, and more community engagement. Moffett mentioned the yearly “shop with a cop” as an example of that.

“They like that, because you have to know your community,” she said. “That’s the feedback I’m getting.”

Moffett joined Mussina in praising the county’s drug court, and said it is a model for how the courts could be improved, specifically citing the compassion and empathy the court’s personnel have for the defendants.

“Addiction doesn’t know a color, it doesn’t know a gender, it doesn’t know age,” she said. “It hits all of us at some point.”

Republican nominee Marc Sortman said he’s had a number of conversations about municipal police over the years with former Montoursville Mayor John Dorin.

Sortman said he believes the sheriff’s office and state police need to be better utilized to provide relief to municipal forces. He noted many communities are discussing regionalization and said the state police already are a “regionalized” force.

“Don’t try to change something or fix something that isn’t broken,” Sortman said of recommending changes to the criminal justice system, adding that courts should be tough on criminals.

Our current DA, Ryan Gardner, has done a tremendous job,” he said, praising Gardner’s efforts to clear up backlogs.

Sortman added that he expects former congressman and district attorney Tom Marino, who is running for district attorney again and unopposed, to continue to be tough-minded about crime.

“We’ve been very instrumental in helping police forces,” incumbent commissioner and Republican nominee Scott Metzger said, noting the county has used gas impact fee revenue to assist in purchasing equipment and federal “rescue plan” dollars to upgrade radio communications.

“It’s important going forward that we be pro-law enforcement because if we don’t have society of laws and rules, then we don’t have a society,” he said. “We back the blue — they go out every day to put their lives on the line for us, to protect us. It’s important that we hear what their needs are.”

He acknowledged some communities are pursuing or considering regionalization, but cautioned that the residents of those communities need to want it for it to work, “because that’s where they live.”

“We work very closely with the courts,” Metzger said. “They are a co-equal branch of government.”

He praised their efforts at achieving cost savings when possible.

Two aspects of the criminal justice system Metzger says the county needs to examine are the jury system and protection-from-abuse orders.

“It’s important that we have a better, streamlined system,” he said of jury service.

“We’re going to approach somewhere between 600 and 900 PFAs by the end of this year. … We’re approaching No. 1 in the state for PFAs,” Metzger said. “Our sheriffs are serving these papers at night, which is very dangerous to them and the community.”

He said protection-from-abuse orders are “an absolutely necessary measure in today’s society.”

“There’s no place in this world for domestic violence,” Metzger said.

Reflecting on his career in probation and parole before running for public office, Metzger did caution that there are a small number of people who abuse the system and the courts need to hold such people accountable.