By David Rogers, Contributing Columnist
On Nov. 30, Gov. John Kitzhaber released his proposed budget
for 2013-15. The budget included no money for prison expansion — despite the
fact that the state projects it will need more than 2,000 new prison beds at an
estimated cost of $600 million over the next decade.
The governor based his budget, instead, on the idea that
it’s time to stop the skyrocketing increase in Oregon’s prison population — to
hold prison growth flat — a bold and important step for Oregon.
How can prison growth be flatlined while still maintaining
community safety? The governor created a high-level commission of experts to
answer that very question. In December, the Commission on Public Safety
provided its final report, recommending a package of reforms that would smartly
reduce the prison population prospectively (meaning recommended policy changes
would not apply to individuals currently in prison) and shift the focus of our
public safety system to prevention and local interventions.
Here are highlights from those recommendations:
1) Currently, the Department of Corrections does not
sufficiently assist people soon to be released from prison or provide enough of
a transition period to ensure that people leaving prison are better prepared
for successful re-entry into the community. The commission recommends extending
transitional leave and strengthening the transitional leave application
process. This is a period where certain people are released early into the
community while still under the authority of DOC and receive intensive re-entry
support and supervision.
2) Our current mandatory minimums prevent judges from using
discretion and force longer than appropriate sentences for some lower-level
Measure 11 crimes. Modest reforms that allow judicial discretion for select
offenses can ensure the appropriate accountability without increasing prison
capacity.
3) Ballot Measure 57 created increased sentences for drug
and property crimes. Most people convicted under Measure 57 would be better
served by shorter sentences and increased access to addiction treatment.
Measure 57 is the key reason for the current prison forecast that indicates we
will need more than 2,000 more prison beds in the next decade. Phasing out
large portions of Measure 57’s sentence enhancements while increasing drug
court diversions provides a better approach to breaking the cycle of
addiction-driven crime.
4) Oregon prisoners are staying in prison longer than at any
other point in the last decade, and this increased length of stay is a core
driver of the growing prison population. The commission recommends expanding
earned-time eligibility by 10 percent for those that are currently eligible.
Earned-time is a policy implemented by the DOC that can provide people with
time off their sentences for program participation and active rehabilitation
work. This policy provides an incentive to use time in prison productively and
can reduce recidivism. The recommendation would increase total allowable earned
time to 30 percent and would not apply to those sentenced under Measure 11.
5) Despite an overwhelming amount of research that suggests
the contrary is needed, Oregon regularly charges and sentences youth as adults.
Youth serving mandatory minimum adult sentences and who successfully complete
all available programming have a chance to have a judge look at their progress
and determine whether a different level of supervision is useful for the
remainder of the sentence. The commission recommends requiring a hearing
part-way through a young person’s mandatory sentence where a judge can
determine if the youth should remain in prison or could be transferred for
mandatory supervision by a parole officer.
6) Currently, counties that reduce their impact on the state
prison population through decisions made in sentencing, supervision, and
revocation have no financial incentive to do so. For instance, if a county
court focuses on effective sanctions for holding a probation violator
accountable without sending them to state prison, the county bears the cost.
This means that counties can often focus on more expensive and less effective
prison sanctions for low-level infractions. The commission recommends creating
a voluntary performance incentive program that provides fiscal incentives for
counties to reduce recidivism and safely reduce their impact on the state
prison population.
In addition to the above policy recommendations, the
governor and the Commission on Public Safety are looking to shift the way we
fund Oregon’s public safety infrastructure. Currently, a majority of our public
safety spending goes to our prison system, which in many ways means we have
failed. The governor is advocating that we shift funding to strengthen local
intervention and crime prevention programs. This means more resources for
addiction treatment and mental health services and more resources for community
corrections and drug courts, for example.
There is a huge hope that community-based victim services
also receive a significant increase in funding. In 2011, more than 20,000
requests for emergency shelter for domestic and sexual violence victims went
unmet in Oregon. We can, and must, do something about this. Providing domestic
violence victims with access to shelter, safety planning and legal advocacy can
reduce re-assault by up to 70 percent, and yet these programs are tragically
underfunded.
The policy changes that reduce prison expansion are
critical, but without investing in our local public safety infrastructure, we
will not actually be strengthening Oregon’s approach to crime and
accountability in sustainable ways.
The governor has laid out a bold agenda and the upcoming
Legislative Session begins on Feb. 4. Sensible public safety reform will be one
of the most impactful issues the legislature will attempt to tackle. Here is
hoping they can get it done.
David Rogers is the executive director for Partnership
for Safety and Justice. PSJ is a statewide, non-profit advocacy organization
dedicated to making Oregon’s approach to crime and public safety more effective
and just.
This article appears in 2013-01-18.