County looking for funds to ease filled jail
■ Opponents to new jail
building suggest alternative
law enforcement options
By Andrew Adams
Oregon Daily Emerald
Faced with an overcrowded jail
and an underused juvenile deten
tion center, Lane County is looking
to raise funds to expand its criminal
justice system.
Nearly 4,500 prisoners left the
county jail before completing their
sentences last year, and Sheriff Jan
Clements hopes voters will approve
measures 20-38 and 20-39 this No
vember to cut that number back.
Stephen Carmichael, director for
the John Serbu Youth Campus at the
Lane County Juvenile Justice Cen
ter, is also campaigning for the
measures because he says they will
force more young offenders to face
the consequences of their crimes.
But the opposition, led by grass
roots political activist Steve Kutch
er, says that if voters approve the
measures, they will provide fund
ing for unnecessary prisons.
Ballot Measure 20-38 would gen
erate $10 million a year for four years
by increasing property taxes 55 cents
for every $1,000 of assessed property
value. These funds would support a
larger population at the county in
mate work camp and Juvenile Justice
Center, add staff to supervise the in
creased populations and open a fe
male wing of the juvenile center’s al
cohol and drug treatment center.
Ballot Measure 20-39 would pro
vide more than $8 million to build a
new jail intake center that would al
low the incoming population to in
crease by 65 people. Like 20-38,
Measure 20-39 would raise proper
ty taxes by 3 cents for every $1,000
of assessed property value.
Carmichael said the two initiatives
are vital to preserve the effectiveness
of the county’s justice system because
without adequate funding, juveniles
won’t learn they can be held respon
sible for their actions.
“Last year we had about 5,000
crimes, but we had only 36 beds,”
he said. “There's no way to hold
kids responsible.”
In addition to not learning a lesson,
offenders also know their stay in the
detention center could be short, he
said.
“They all know that we’re full, and
if someone comes in they know
someone has to be going out,” he said
If the two measures pass,
Carmichael said the Department of
Youth Services can staff another
holding area at the justice center to in
crease its population by 32. He said
the increase will allow the county to
handle about 2,000 juveniles a year.
“We’ll be able to hold them for four
to five days,” Carmichael said,
“That’s enough for most kids to get
the message there are consequences.”
Clements also said that it’s hard
to make inmates feel punished
when they know they have a chance
to get out of prison early. Under fed
eral regulations passed in 1986, all
jails have to keep their populations
at certain levels by releasing in
mates through a matrix system that
figures which criminals pose the
least threat to society. Clements said
this entails a constant “juggling act”
with inmates to ensure the wrong
ones are not released.
The number of prisoners released
has steadily decreased since it
reached its peak in 1997, when
Clements said that for “every 100
people booked in, we threw 45 out
the door.” Now the release rate is
about 29 percent, and Clements said
if the two measures pass the release
rate could possibly drop to below 20
percent.
There are currently 485 total beds
at the county jail and 120 at the coun
ty work camp, an isolated minimal
security facility that is currently only
housing 30 inmates because of a lack
of funds. Clements said that if the
funding is secured, the work camp
could be brought to capacity and that
would free extra space at the jail so
the new intake center could be built.
“We have 120 beds at the work
camp and the measures will bring
another 90 on-line,” he said. “The
domino effect is even when we’re
building this intake center we’ve got
90 beds.”
Clements said the new intake cen
ter needs to be built because the cur
rent center’s foundation is sinking.
The measures will also provide
funding for the increased staff neces
sary to supervise all the extra prison
ers and improve the aging heating
and cooling systems in the jail, which
Clements said are vital to keep in
mates from growing belligerent.
“You don’t want to get into a situ
ation where you give inmates a rea
son to riot,” he said.
Kutcher, however, said the rea
sons to vote for the measures are
completely unsound. The local ac
tivist, who has worked on previous
political campaigns, said he is or
ganizing a committee to oppose the
measures on the grounds that they
are unnecessary.
“The crime rate is going down and
instead of decreasing the number of
Turn to Jail funding, page 4A
Cadavers
continued from page 1A
hope is that the students will learn
to think in anatomic terms.”
He said the bodies have been do
nated to medical science and come
from Oregon Health Sciences Uni
versity. They were bought for ap
proximately $1,100.
Two of the teaching assistants for
the course, Reed Ferber and Susan
Verscheure, have had the opportunity
to dissect many cadavers previously.
Ferber is teaching the laboratory
section for the sixth year. He said he
enjoys teaching students about their
own bodies and giving them an ap
preciation for the complexity of the
human body, and hopes the stu
dents will eventually go on to enter
health-related fields.
“Students walk away with an un
derstanding of EMS,” Verscheure
said. ’’They can say: ‘I know where
the deltoid muscle inserts.’”
But before the dissection begins,
students have to be mentally ready to
see a corpse on the examining table.
“I basically tell them they have to
deal with it,” Ferber said.Strum
said, in the beginning, the person
still looks human, but after the dis
section has been in progress for
some time, the body loses its human
appearance.“It’s a lot harder to un
derstand the body with everything
over top of it, ” Verscheure said.
She said it is easier to see the mus
cles and organs with the skin off.
“The brain doesn’t look like
much as an organ,” Strum said. “But
the way it functions neurologically
is enormously complex.”
Verscheure said some students
have shown no apprehension about
dissection and are already asking to
look at the cadavers.
“They are really excited,” she said.
However, not all students are pre
pared: Strum said one student
passed out the first year Strum
taught the class.
Ferber said by the second or third
time the bodies are uncovered, stu
dents understand the etiquette and
respect involved in the process.
Verscheure admitted she often
wonders what the person being dis
sected was like during life and how
he or she died.
“That is the fun part. It’s a mys
tery,” Verscheure said. “I prefer to
know about the person. ”
Verscheure said she once looked at
the body of a male who had an artifi
cial knee, but the story surrounding
the injury was an unsolved puzzle.
“It would have been interesting to
know something about the person
because we now are seeing the end
result,” she said.
Strum said that the most frequent
causes of death in the cadavers they
receive are cancer and heart or lung
disease. While the person’s medical
report is available to the students,
often the cause of death is un
known.
“If a body is donated to science,
there is no autopsy,” Strum said.
“If the physician caring for the per
son was not certain of the cause of
death, it may not be known exact
ly [how the person died].”
Ferber said students really get to
know the person to whom their at
Dan Brunell Emerald
Waweru Gatimu discusses his homework in Human Anatomy with his instructor, Susan
Verscheure, on Wednesday.
tention is devoted.
“They almost end up being part
of the family,” Ferber said. “You
really get to know the little intrica
cies about them.”
Sophomore biology major Kari
na Brown, a volunteer in the emer
gency room at Sacred Heart Med
ical Center and a student in the
class, said she is looking forward
to dissecting the cadavers.
“Being able to explore our own
bodies and deal with something
that is so applicable, I think will be
awesome,” Brown said. “I just
think of them as generous people
who were willing to donate their
bodies to science. They should be
treated with respect and not
harmed.”
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