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 ...
23 Jan 2013 - Street Roots Staff
By David Rogers and Kerry Naughton, Contributing Columnists America’s criminal justice debate is broken in two. With just 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. leads the world in the use of incarceration with 25 percent of the planet’s prison popu ...
22 Feb 2013 - Street Roots Staff
While other states reduce incarceration and crime, Oregon is on track to spend $600M on new prison space By Denise Welch and Sonny Lerma, Contributing Columnists This year, Oregon’s Legislature will examine whether to pass reforms that reduce our reliance ...
26 Mar 2013 - Street Roots Staff
By David Rogers, Contributing Columnist Gov. John Kitzhaber convened a diverse set of public safety system stakeholders to examine ways Oregon could improve public safety while also reducing prison spending. The governor’s Commission on Public Safety exam ...
17 May 2013 - Street Roots Staff
Regular readers of our column will know that Partnership for Safety and Justice and our members worked very hard to help shape the recommendations that the Governor’s Commission on Public Safety made to the Oregon Legislature. The result was House Bill 31 ...
16 Jun 2013 - David Rogers
Summer is here and many of us have been treated to the familiar serenade that calls up so many childhood memories: the lilting melody of the ice cream truck. Imagine the disappointment on little kids’ faces if, after running up to the ice cream truck with ...
14 Aug 2013 - Kerry Naughton
Recently, there has been quite a buzz in the criminal justice reform community across the nation. Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads our nation’s Department of Justice, announced earlier this month that the DOJ will be taking steps to reform and tran ...
11 Sep 2013 - Cassandra Villaneuva
When discussing re-entry barriers with a formerly incarcerated person a few years ago, I was struck by the need for Oregon to grapple with a rhetorical question the young man was posing. “When will we actually put corrections in the Department of Correcti ...
8 Oct 2013 - David Rogers
Last June, the Legislature passed House Bill 3194, a public safety reform package that made some changes to Oregon’s criminal justice system. The goal of the bill was to reduce the size and cost of the state prison system and invest some of the money save ...
2 Dec 2013 - Shannon Wight
More than 4,000 people leave Oregon state prisons each year, and many more are released from county jails. This population suffers from disproportionately high rates of untreated infectious and chronic disease, mental health disorders and substance abuse ...
28 Jan 2014 - Gina Anzaldúa