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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 16, 2012)
Our preoccupation with incarceration costs us in education BY N A IVA SH A DEAN archaic approach to addressing crime and public safety. aced with high unemployment rates Why is Oregon’s prison spending so out and crippling debt, Oregon students of control? Oregon can trace the trend are stumbling under the burden of directly back to 1994, when voters approved rising tuition costs. On Feb. 21, hundreds Ballot of Measure 11. Measure 11 established Oregon college students lobbied lawmakers mandatory minimum sentences for in Salem and gathered on the campuses of approximately 20 “person-to-person” crimes, Eastern Oregon and Portland State and it automatically sends youth charged Universities to protest the with any of those crimes, aged 15 and over, rising cost of higher directly to adult court. Mandatory education. Annual tuition minimums are a one-size-fits-all approach to and fees have doubled criminal sentencing that prevent judges over the last decade, and from using their discretion and prevents the Legislature’s 2011 Oregon from using smarter approaches to holdback of 3.5 percent accountability and crime prevention. of the education budget Shortly after the passage of Measure 11, has exacerbated the Oregon’s governor and legislature approved problem. plans for more than 8,000 new prison beds, Partnership for Safety and Justice (PSJ) including siting for six new prisons. Since joined the Oregon Student Association in its then, the legislature has authorized more day of protest and lobbying because, as an than $1 billion for prison construction. As organization committed to building safe and anticipated, Oregon’s prison population healthy communities, we know that exploded — from 6,000 inmates in 1995 to education is a key factor for success. We more than 14,000 today, and the also know that students have a difficult job Department of Corrections budget more lobbying the legislature to stop the than tripled. increasing cost of tuition and fees. In such a Delusional proponents of these challenging budgetary climate, policymakers mandatory minimums point to Measure 11 have been looking at a decade of deficits. as the reason for the 40-year lows in crime Because they haven’t found the political will that Oregon is currently experiencing. Yet to raise revenue, their approach to budget the evidence doesn’t stack up in favor of deficits has been to simply cut funding and Measure 11. Not only are crime rates services. Legislators regularly ask students similarly down all over America, but many lobbying to protect higher education states that have reduced reliance on funding: Where would you like us to take incarceration have seen even greater overall the money from? Do you have an idea of drops in crime. These states are proving where we can make smart cuts? that there are more effective ways to Well, we have an idea. Oregon is one of combat crime. Notably, these states are only a handful of states in the nation that investing in drug and alcohol treatment, spends more money on prisons than on re-entry support for formerly incarcerated higher education, a statistic that is often people returning to the community, and met with dropped jaws by students diversion programs like drug courts. struggling for financial aid. The Department Shifting just a fraction of the dollars now spent on prisons to drug treatment, victim’s of Corrections has been one of the fastest services, and other crime prevention growing state agency budgets that is eating methods would be a smarter, more cost- up an ever-increasing percentage of the effective approach to improving public state’s General Fund. This does not bode safety. We know that for every $1 invested well for Oregon’s future and represents a in drug and alcohol treatment, there is more deeply misplaced set of priorities and an C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T F SAFETY and JUSTICE Naivasha Dean is the membership coordinator for Partnership for Safety and Justice. P S J is a statewide, non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to making Oregon’s approach to crime and public safety more effective and more just. than $7 of public benefits related to crime prevention, for example. Moving toward smart investments in programs that are proven to reduce crime and recidivism will produce long-term savings to taxpayers, and generate hundreds of millions of dollars available for areas that are desperate for funding, such as education. Although education isn’t often pinned as a core approach to crime prevention, the numbers show that students who graduate from high school are much less likely to wind up in the corrections system. A 2008 Oregon-specific report put together by state law enforcement offices and prosecutors found that increasing graduation rates by 10 percentage points would prevent approximately 1,300 aggravated assaults in Oregon each year. The strategy of strengthening our investment in community infrastructure to reduce crime is known as “justice reinvestment.” A key component of this reinvestment framework is stopping the pattern of cyclical crime and imprisonment by addressing the root causes of crime. By passing safe and sensible sentencing reform, we save millions from reduced need for prison beds which we can reinvest into smarter approaches to building safe and healthy communities. Encouragingly, Gov. John Kitzhaber and legislative leaders are expecting a major sentencing reform package for the 2013 Legislature that will draw on a report put forth by Kitzhaber’s Commission on Public Safety. Many policymakers are waking up and realizing that Oregon’s future will not be found behind bars. But in order to see significant corrections reform passed in 2013, it will take a broad-based coalition to support it. Oregon’s students and education advocates have joined forces with Partnership for Safety and Justice because they realize one of the biggest threats to education funding in Oregon is our state’s exaggerated and antiquated emphasis on incarceration. the reasons for my resistance julie mccurdy still we stand ready for the next assault to our dignity to our senses to our sustainability locked and loaded we stand just because the genocide you peddle is now bottled and loaded into rigs or pipes doesnt make it any more or less genocide yes i am new to the knowing and so the knowledge imprint is still fresh real raw starvation disease assimilation didnt work beating us for speaking our own languages or practicing our own traditions only further shaped our determination to hold sacred the gifts our ancestors gave us look who’s shining now all across this nation the nations are reclaiming what you stole hssssssssssss ... rane to the ones who still retain mayhem and murder didn’t work because you forgot to kill us all and while we remain while even a drop of our blood and dna the ability to hear the warning in the wind yes we still do stand ready locked and loaded just like rattlesnakes fangs get to the next generation we will remain and we stand ready to reclaim what our own ancestors kept for us at the cost of their blood and their bones yes we still stand just because you now bottle up your genocide in prettier packages mOQFl we are unaware of the intent just because you phrase things in more polically correct verbage doesn’t make the lies you tell any more palatable just a reminder ready to strike ' because your actions have left nothing but survival as an option because we have learned to hope less and pray more from the ones who went before you can not kill the heart of this land or its people because our ancestors taught us by their example how to stand and some of us remember the lesson
