opinion
april3
2014
Voices From the Crowd:
Reassessing What We Call Crime
By Miles Wickstrom
The struggle to get adequate
funding for the Columbia County jail
has an eerily familiar ring to it. For
those who believe that history has a
habit of repeating itself, consider the
following.
The gulag prison system of
Stalinist Russia was created to pun-
ish dangerous criminals, but expanded
into an institution that punished just
about everyone who was convicted of
anything, including petty criminals and
political dissidents. Very soon after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviets aban-
doned the gulags, not because they ran
out of dissidents, but because they ran
out of money.
According to 2013 data from
the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 50% of
all federal prisoners are incarcerated on
drug-related charges and 10.6% are in
for immigration-related crimes. Throw
in all the white collar crooks and very
quickly you will see that fully two thirds
of the prison population is made up of
non-violent criminals. Although these
numbers cover only federal prisons, it
is important to remember that virtually
every person arrested on suspicion of
(take your pick) begins their incarcera-
tion in a county jail.
A buzz phrase like “Let’s Get
Tough on Crime” fits neatly on a bum-
per sticker. It may generate some heat,
but it provides no light. We’ve been
locking up otherwise law-abiding citi-
zens for drug crimes since the Nixon
administration, yet the addiction rate is
roughly the same today as it was then.
Same story for people entering the
country illegally. Albert Einstein was
correct in saying that repeating the same
thing over and over while expecting a
different outcome amounts to insanity.
Before adopting a knee jerk
get-tough-on-crime approach, may-
be we should reassess what we call
crime. Let’s start with drug “crimes”.
In the medical community, addiction
is viewed as a medical problem, not a
criminal problem. There is no contro-
versy on that issue. The criminal justice
industry has always looked at drugs as
a supply problem instead of a demand
problem and have treated it as such. Af-
ter 60 some years of addressing street
drugs in that manner, we have a very
clear picture of the cost : benefit ratio,
which is dismal at best.
What if our bumper stickers
read “Let’s Get Tough on Addiction”
instead? We know what it costs to lock
up an addict for a year. What is the cost
to provide counseling and therapy for
the same period? Oregon taxpayers
spend more money on prisons than on
higher education. Does a dollar spent
on incarceration yield more benefits
than the same dollar spent on educa-
tion? As a state - and really, as a nation
- we’ve never had that discussion. No
smart business person would ever make
a choice between two options without
running the numbers first.
If Oregon in general and Co-
lumbia County in particular had money
to burn, this discussion would be un-
necessary. However, money is a finite
resource and the demands are diverse.
Before spending a nickel anywhere,
let’s get out a magnifying glass first.
Let’s not do anything tomorrow just be-
cause we did it that way yesterday.
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
Contributors
Dr. Ken Cox
Stacey Lynn
Gayle Rich-Boxman
Randy Sanders
Michal Smith
Sonia Spackman
Grant Williams
Miles Wickstrom
Photography
Gayle Rich-Boxman
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Columbia County Jail Loses Lawsuit
By Randy Sanders
A lawsuit levied against the Co-
lumbia County jail has awarded $15,000
to the Prison Legal News (PLN), a free
publication that proclaims on its web-
site that it is “protecting human rights.”
These are the rights of convicted and
alleged criminals who are incarcerated
in county jails. On their website, PLN
advertises discounted telephone calls
while in jail; books titled “Sue the Doc-
tor and Win“ and “authentic videos shot
in American prisons” where one video
depicts inmates in Lowndes County,
Georgia attacking a guard, taking his
keys and escaping from jail. They go on
to steal a vehicle.
Due to the shrinking budget at
the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office,
there aren’t enough guards to monitor
the mail that comes into the jail and
therefore the sheriff made a decision to
go with a post card policy. Contraband
is easy to hide in mail, such as enve-
lopes and magazines. As you can imag-
ine, criminals can be very creative when
sending methamphetamine – a tiny
amount of powder – buried in the mail,
for instance. The jail requires a mini-
mum of four guards on duty at all times,
and they are currently at that level. This
makes it impossible to pull a guard off
the line to go through incoming mail to
look for contraband.
“That’s why we went with post
cards,” Sheriff Jeff Dickerson said in
a recent interview in his office prior to
his appearance on the Lars Larson Ra-
dio Show, who supports the Columbia
County Jail levy. Sheriff Dickerson con-
tinued to explain his reasoning. “That
[idea] came from Sheriff Joe down
there in Maricopa County (Arizona).
And a lot of sheriffs started doing it.
The Oregon State Sheriff’s Association
said we want to do this too, but not ev-
erybody did. Some people said, we’re
not doing that. But we thought with our
short staffing, this makes perfect sense.
We don’t have an individual assigned to
this. We would still accomplish the goal
to keep contraband, which is dangerous
to inmates and staff, out of our jail, to
do a better job of keeping it out of jail,
and to cut down on the time it takes to
process all of that mail.”
In the litigation, it claimed that
the sheriff was discriminating against
the inmate’s First Amendment rights of
free speech by not allowing Prison Le-
gal News to be sent to inmates. Usually
Happy Hour Mon-Fri 4-7
Lady’s Night Wed 5-12
when it is perceived that a party may
be acting unlawful – in this case the
jail not allowing inmates to receive this
free magazine – lawyers will send a let-
ter of intent to file a lawsuit, if change
isn’t made. “They baited us for a year!”
Sheriff Dickerson adds. It is usually the
case that most lawyers acting in good
faith are trying to obtain the goal of get-
ting the other party to stop doing what-
ever it is they are doing, but in this case
no letter was ever sent, until the sheriff
was told of an impending lawsuit. Was
it really the goal to stop Sheriff Dicker-
son in the first place? The Seattle law
firm of MacDonald, Hoague and Bay-
less racked up impressive attorney fees
of $763,803.45, while the plaintiff re-
ceived $15,000,
Perhaps the silver lining to this
story is that Columbia County has in-
surance for this type of lawsuit through
their carrier CIS and that taxpayers of
Columbia County will not suffer dam-
ages for this. An appeal is pending.
Vernonia’s Voice, LLC
PO Box 55
Vernonia, OR 97064
503-367-0098
www.VernoniasVoice.com
VERNONIA
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&
Warranty on all parts and labor
Now offering
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Randy Sanders is the Public Informa-
tion Officer/Communications Direc-
tor for Columbia County. He can be
reached at randy.sanders@live.com.
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