Addicted to crime

The last time Sherrin Larson held a job was in 1994.

She has gotten by the same way other drug addicts do – crime.

“After five days of doing it (using methamphetamines), I’d have to sleep for four days,” said Larson, 45, during a jailhouse interview. “That gets in the way of a job.”

Spokane and Coeur d’Alene law enforcement officials estimate 80 percent to 90 percent of all property crimes – including burglaries, shoplifting, car prowling and identity theft – are committed by drug addicts like Larson.

“Because of the addiction, I stole money from my mom and dad,” said Larson, who was raised in Spokane. “I’m basically a good person, and I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but when you introduce a drug, that’s what happens.”

Law officers say drugs and crime have always gone together. In the early ‘80s, it was cocaine and some heroin. Anecdotal evidence suggests meth users now are the primary property-crime offenders.

“The reason it’s meth right now is because it’s today’s drug of choice,” Spokane Valley Police Chief Cal Walker said.

Due to meth’s addictive properties, Walker said, people turn to crime to support their habits.

When Larson worked, she was a technical secretary who did investigative research and prepared court documents for auto crashes, she said. Then she got addicted – not just to using meth but also dealing it.

Larson was from an upper-middle class family. She said that when her parents moved to Mead in 1973, “I had culture shock.” She was 13 years old and started smoking pot and cigarettes. She first tried methamphetamine in 1980.

Her adult years have been riddled with felony convictions for drug possession – methamphetamine and heroin – and possession of a dangerous weapon and forgery.

Larson has three grown children and five grandchildren, but she doesn’t have addresses or phone numbers for any of them. “I’ve been on the streets for several years,” she said.

During a jailhouse interview, Larson said she was “done” with drugs.

But after she was released from Spokane County Jail, she went to live with boyfriend. He’d started using methamphetamine again, and he kicked her out of the apartment on a rainy day. “It’s a meth’d up world,” she said, blaming the end of her relationship on the drug.

Larson said she turned to heroin to dull the pain. On April 11, she was arrested in Liberty Lake on drug possession charges; she’s now incarcerated at Geiger Corrections Center.

“Fortunately it’s just a drug charge, not identity theft or stolen property or anything like that, that could really mess me up,” said Larson.

Fraud, forgery and identity theft are the illegal acts most often committed by drug users in Spokane, a police official said. A Spokane Valley police detective said shoplifting is on the rise.

Burglary is the No. 1 property crime in Kootenai County related to drugs, said sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Ben Wolfinger.

Eastern Washington and North Idaho officials attribute many property crimes to three drugs – cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine – with meth as the drug of choice. But there is no official data.

“There really is no way to track that, but we estimate that 80 percent of the people in jail for property crimes are known to have some sort of drug addiction,” said Ben Wolfinger. “And the motivation behind committing the crime is usually drug motivated.”