Multnomah County’s incarceration rate is less than half the national average, but disparities remain
When Rod Underhill attached his name to new group aimed at putting fewer people behind bars, he made a symbolic statement more prudent district attorneys up for reelection might shy away from.
The group, Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, announced its arrival on Oct. 21 at a press conference in Washington, D.C. Thus far members include more than 150 current and former police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and attorneys general from all 50 states who say they’re committed to advocating loudly for fundamental changes to America’s justice system.
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“As our nation’s top police and prosecutors reflect back on their careers, we have come to understand that many of the so-called tough-on-crime principles to which many of us gave our lives are flat out wrong,” said member Maj. Neill Franklin, a former police commander in Baltimore, Md.
Law Enforcement Leaders plans to advocate for alternatives to arrests, end mandatory minimums and reduce incarceration – while maintaining public safety. It’s a project of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
The bulk of prosecutors who signed on with the national advocacy group are also members of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys – Underhill sits on its board of directors.
“It’s a group of prosecutors from around the country who tend to think similarly,” he said. “We can agree on a lot of things. But everybody has their certain point,” he said – his being mandatory minimums, also known as determinate sentencing.
“I am a supporter of many of the determinate sentencing schemes we have here in Oregon,” he said, noting when it comes to murder, “I prefer the post Ballot Measure 11 environment.”
Underhill told Street Roots his motivation for joining Law Enforcement Leaders came from a shared philosophy he’s already put into practice as one of the chief designers of Oregon House Bill 3194 – a piece of 2013 legislation that funded programs to reduce recidivism and the number of inmates counties were sending to state correctional facilities. It also relaxed sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug and property crimes.
Locally, it created the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program, where some individuals facing prison sentences are offered intensive probation instead.
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Offenders convicted of property crimes, drug offences and some Tier II Measure 11 offenses, such as second-degree kidnapping, robbery and assault, are assessed for eligibility. If an offender participates, he or she stays in the community and is enrolled in wraparound services, such as drug and alcohol treatment, housing and mental health services. If participants violate probation or commit another crime, they are revoked from the program and sent to prison to serve out their sentence.
Underhill said if this 15-month-old program proves successful, he’d like to make it available to more offenders.
But at this point in the program, “we don’t have the answer to a very, very important question,” he said.
If his office recommends keeping someone in the community instead of prison, and then that person commits another crime, that’s something he needs to be watching for, Underhill said.
“It’s my job to be responsible,” he said. “Have we kept the right people here on supervision and given them a chance for success? And how well are our programs doing in facilitating and assisting in that success?”
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To date, 90 percent of offenders in the program have been successful, with 32 out of 324 individuals enrolled in the program having been revoked to prison.
Most revocations were due to technical violations, such as not going to treatment, using drugs and failing to report, according to Multnomah County spokesperson David Austin. He said these violations occur after the probationer is given several warnings.
Underhill said in addition to decreasing the number of inmates the county sends to prison, the number of county jail beds has dropped significantly – from 2,100 several years ago to 1,310 today. And the length of stay at county jails is 12.7 days, much shorter than the national average, which is 23 days.
According to recent analysis by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the incarceration rate in Multnomah County is less than half the national average.
While incarceration rates are down and jail beds are fewer, Multnomah County has room for improvement in the disparate representation of minority groups and mentally ill people within its jails and courtrooms.
Underhill noted a MacArthur study found a disproportionate number of cases coming into his office for review involve the African American community – “4.3 to 1 ratio, black to white.”
African Americans are 6.5 times and Native Americans are 3.2 times more likely than whites to be booked into Multnomah County jails, according to county numbers.
He noted, however, that this disparity is not exacerbated when his prosecution team reviews cases – deciding which ones to move forward on and which ones to drop – meaning percentage-wise, the number of cases his office prosecutes among different races is fairly flat. He said there are even “modest reductions” in some areas.
Mentally ill individuals are also taking up a disproportionate number of jail beds. Forty percent of people booked into Multnomah County jails suffer from mental illness, and they usually stay longer.
A report on the Multnomah County Department of Corrections during the last three months of 2014 found evidence that many inmates had a pattern of repeat incarceration in an apparent attempt to access mental health services within the jail.
In an effort to get more funding for mental health alternatives and to better understand how it can further reduce disparities, Multnomah County applied for and won the first phase of a competitive grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
It was one of 20 jurisdictions awarded $150,000 in the first phase, but only 10 jurisdictions will win $500,000 to $2 million in the next round based on their proposals.
In early October, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Edward Jones traveled to Chicago with seven other representatives from the county justice system to meet with the foundation and 19 other jurisdictions competing for the second phase of grant money.
Jones said the MacArthur Foundation wants “bold” proposals to reduce the number of jail beds, and there’s a feeling in Multnomah County that most significant strategies for reductions have already been implemented.
He said he doesn’t think the county will be able to stop arresting and prosecuting offenders struggling with mental illness and addiction for low-level crimes until there are better alternatives.
“Not booking them into jail means we’re not prosecuting them – what is the officer going to do with those people? We’re dealing with them because the community isn’t,” he said. “People are very supportive of law enforcement, but not of social services. But everyone in the system knows we can do more with social services.”
Underhill voted alongside county colleagues on Nov. 3 to approve three ways the county plans to move forward on a proposal for the MacArthur grant, although it’s not proposing any strategies that will significantly reduce jail beds, which may hinder its chances of winning.
Jones said to make additional significant dents in the county jail population, would “require a lot more than fine tuning. It would take basic changes about how we look at crime and dealing with it.”
Underhill said the county plans to initiate three actions, starting with understanding and reducing racial and ethnic disparity at every point in the justice system – from calls for service from victims to re-entry.
He said anecdotally that county officials believe crime victims are disproportionately minorities, but there’s no hard data to prove it.
The county also wants to revamp Community Court, “or at least look at it,” he said. “Community court today is not what community court was in the 1990s when it began. For example, it’s not even in the community, necessarily, like it used to be.”
And finally, he said, the county plans a “serious drill down into mental health impacted individuals that occupy our jail.”
This strategy includes incorporating health screening into the booking process, processing mentally ill individuals more quickly and expanding community-based resources for releasable detainees, according to a status update sent from an outside consulting agency to county chair Deborah Kafoury. But it’s estimated this strategy would only represent a 1.2 to 2.5 percent reduction in jail use.
