District Attorney Phil Cline Farms and Ranches necessarily occupy vast tracks of unfenced land, there are millions of acres under cultivation in Tulare County alone. Farms and ranches are also often located in sparsely inhabited areas where the lighting is dim or nonexistent. Valuable produce and animals are outdoors and expensive equipment and chemicals are unguarded.
Crimes are often undetected until daylight or even days later.
Trace evidence is often destroyed or lost by the passage of time, exposure to the elements, or contaminated by farmers and ranchers working in the field As we all know the last few years have produced a revolution in high technology. The quality is improving. The price is becoming affordable. The Model Rural Crime Program seeks to bring the later factor to bear on the former, with implications for the entire industry. An original purpose of the program was to prepare a systematic analysis of the areas most seriously impacted by rural crime by season and use modern technology and scientific approach to reducing and eventually eliminating crime's impact on the agricultural industry.