Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger has announced a new initiative to deal with drug traffickers which he is calling “Not in My Back Yard.”

In a letter, which appears on page 4 of today’s paper, Goldinger wrote that he is “sick” of drug dealers poisoning the residents of the county and creating violence.

Law enforcement and prosecutors believed they could control the problem, but recent incidents of violence — including shootings and killings — associated with drugs have been an eye opener.

“The current methods used to deter these individuals has not been effective. It is time to try something different. That is what I plan to do,” he wrote in the letter delivered to the Butler Eagle Friday.

He noted that Butler County has seen four homicide cases during the past three months and all of them have some connection to the “drug world” in Butler County.

In an interview Friday, Goldinger said the plan is to target offenders who have come to Butler for one reason: to sell heroin or cocaine.

However, local people who sell drugs won’t be immune to the same level of prosecution.

Goldinger said the law enforcement community, the prosecutors and the courts are committed to his plan, which includes seeking higher bail amounts to keep suspects in prison before trial.

All county law enforcement officers were given the memo Friday morning to start requesting higher bail on felony drug cases because those defendants are risks for flight and harming others.

“And expect more trials and tougher sentences,” Goldinger said, noting that a year of state prison time is within the guidelines for even the lowest felony drug conviction for a first-time offender. “If you (defendants) don’t like that offer, we are prepared to go to trial.”

County President Judge Thomas Doerr said Friday that he has had multiple conversations with Goldinger in recent weeks and backs the plan.

“I’m very supportive. I think he did the right thing and he went about it the right way,” he said.

One important aspect of the plan is that police, district judges, prosecutors and county judges all agree that there is a problem and agree that drug trafficking needs to be targeted for stricter enforcement, he said.

“When you develop a unified approach from beginning of the approach to the end, it can have very effective results,” he said.

Setting higher bail amounts for suspects when they are arraigned in district court will keep more of them behind bars, meaning they won’t miss court hearings and their cases will move through the criminal justice system more quickly.

It also keeps potentially dangerous criminals off the streets.

Doerr said there have been multiple cases in recent years where a person was arrested for drug offenses and they went on to commit another crime after being released on a bond.

Detective Tim Fennell, coordinator of the Butler County Drug Task Force, said he has seen that happen plenty of times during his career.

“They will release them and they will go right back to what they were doing before,” he said.

Fennell said he was familiar with Goldinger’s plan and agrees that it can be an effective course of action. Butler has always attracted some drug dealers who come from outside the area though the number may be increasing, he said.

Stricter punishments for selling illegal drugs could force many of them to set up shop elsewhere, he said.

“If the word spreads that if you get arrested and convicted in Butler County, you’re going to go to prison, that would certainly be a deterrent. They’ll go to easier ground somewhere else,” he said.

Butler County in 2016 had 74 residents die of drug overdoses, which was an increase of 27 from the year before.

Since Dec. 31, 2016, police in the county have been investigating four different homicides: Christopher M. Cannon was accused of stabbing James S. Martin to death in his East Butler home on Dec. 31; David J. Franklin is wanted by police for the fatal shooting of Rashaan K. Adams at Wick Street Apartment in Butler last month; Keith Lambing is accused of killing his girlfriend’s son, 4-year-old Bentley Thomas Miller in a Butler Township motel; and state police are still investigating the death of Gregory W. Bosko of Kittanning, whose body was found in Clearfield Township and who may have been killed in Lyndora, investigators say.