Editor's note: This is the third in a series of stories examining where the five attorney general candidates stand on major issues.

Teachers, not cops, are the most effective weapons against crime, said Lee Bruner, a Republican candidate for attorney general who said this week he supports coal mining as a way to pay for public education.

Bruner, 47, of Butte, said recently that Montana's top elected officials should more aggressively market state lands and coal reserves to bring money to Montana's schools. Bruner is particularly interested in the Otter Creek coal tracts, enormous southeast Montana deposits of underground coal owned by the state and held in trust for public education.

Royalties assessed on that coal would be a boon to public education, Bruner said. Well-educated citizens earn more and are less likely to commit crimes, he said, making for a safer, more prosperous society.

"If you increase the quality of our schools, it has a huge impact on crime," he said, adding that national statistics of America's prison populations shows inmates are less educated and poorer than the average citizens.

Like the Otter Creek tracts, most of Montana's state-owned lands are held in trust to benefit public schools. School trust lands are managed by the State Land Board, a five-member panel comprising the top state-elected officials: the governor, superintendent of public instruction, secretary of state, auditor and attorney general.

Several energy companies have shown interest in Otter Creek and Bruner said the Land Board should be talking to those companies.

"They are well-funded and environmentally responsible," he said. "They would develop it in the proper ways."

Despite his enthusiasm for developing the tracts, Bruner said there are limits to what the board should do to help bring the coal to market. He said the board should actively court energy companies only in rare circumstances.

He also said the board has a limited or no role in helping to mitigate some of the major barriers cited for why the tracts have not yet been mined.

For example, some energy companies have listed the uncertain future of carbon-based pollution, like carbon dioxide, as a deterrent to developing new coal fields and coal-burning power plants. But Bruner said the land board is not tasked to deal with environmental laws, only to help develop and manage school trust lands. He said the board has no role in the debate over carbon-based pollution.

Federal lawmakers have toyed with the idea of building a research power plant somewhere in the United States to find ways of using coal without producing carbon dioxide. While Bruner said he personally supported those efforts, the Land Board has no business getting involved in those discussions.

There is also no railroad going to the tracts, making delivering the coal to market more difficult. Bruner said the Land Board could work with companies to get easements over state lands for a railroad, but, ultimately, building a railroad is up to the company, not the state.

Bruner said he supports sustainable uses of state land, not rapidly depleting the lands of their value for the sake of short-term profits.