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Street roots
Sept. 27, 2013
Better solutions are on the front end, not the back
BY DAVID ROGERS
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N I S T
hen 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
Corrections?”
I am not looking to get
too philosophical here,
but it seems like we do
want our prison system focused on helping
people succeed when they get out. After all,
over ninety percent of people in our state
prison system will come home eventually.
So how do we make our public safety
system better at reducing re-offense? How
do we break the cycle of crime and
re-incarceration?
Clearly, we must zero-in on the role
addiction plays in crime and the role
treatment can play in crime prevention.
With little fanfare in August, the
Secretary of State’s office released an audit
of access to addiction treatment among
people leaving prison in Oregon. The report
demonstrated how much more could be
done while also highlighting a surprising
new resource.
The report begins by outlining the scale
of addiction-related convictions in our state.
Seventy percent of incarcerated people in
Oregon have identified substance abuse
problems. The Department of Corrections
focuses its limited treatment resources on
people identified as a high risk to reoffend.
W
David Rogers is the
executive director o f
Partnership for Safety
and fustice. PSJ is a
statewide, non-profit
advocacy
organization
dedicated to making
Oregon’s approach to
crime and public
safety more effective
and just.
Yet, the report also found that over 4,500
people assessed as high-risk who were
released from 2008 to 2011 did not receive
treatment.
By any standard, 4,500 is a lot of people
who could benefit from addiction treatment
who are not getting it in prison and might
not be getting it in the community either. So
how do we fix this?
The Secretary of State’s report did
present one very interesting resource: the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(ACA). Under the expansion of Medicaid
under the ACA which becomes effective in
January of 2014, a huge number of the
people leaving prison may qualify for
healthcare coverage under which addiction
treatment would be fully accessible. This
means that, with the right coordination, the
expansion of healthcare coverage has the
potential to relieve financially stressed
counties of nearly all the costs of providing
substance abuse treatment to people who
could benefit greatly from it. So not only will
the Affordable Care Act provide thousands
of Oregonians with health care and
treatment, we have an opportunity to also
significantly reduce recidivism.
For highlighting the benefits of the ACA
alone, the Secretary of State’s audit was
very useful, but the report raises critical
issues that need much more conversation in
Oregon.
First and foremost, the audit indirectly
underscores that addiction is a public health
issue. Yes, addiction has public safety
implications. People can commit addiction-
driven crime. But we have been addressing
addiction from more of a criminalization
approach than a public health approach. It
seems quite clear that if incarceration is our
primary strategy to address addiction-driven
crime, we will not succeed in breaking the
cycle and we pay for it dearly.
The audit points out that it costs Oregon
$84 a day to keep someone in prison but
$16 a day supervise people in the
community and provide treatment.
So why are some people being sent to
prison in the first place if we can hold them
accountable and get them effective
treatment in the community? The truth is
that we know diversion programs like drug
courts work. The research is clear. But right
now we are sending a lot people to prison
for addiction-driven crime who aren’t getting
what they need there.
Remember the young man’s question:
when will we actually put corrections into
the Department of Corrections? Although I
agree that our prison systems should be
focused on rehabilitation, we are probably
looking in the wrong direction if we think
prisons are Oregon’s best crime prevention
tool. We have to look more at front-end
solutions and not back-end solutions.
Expanding access to treatment in the
community when people return from prison
is great - it’s a good step. Ensuring people
get access to treatment in prison is also a
good step. But a better step is getting more
people access to treatment and proven
accountability interventions before sending
them to prison at all.
We still have some real work to do in
order to shift toward a more effective
prevention and public health-oriented
approach to creating safe and healthy
communities in Oregon. But we are
beginning to ask the right questions.
Lessons of Trayvon: Conference addresses youth, guns and violence
BY LEW CHURCH
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N I S T
n response to recent events, from the
Sept. 16 mass shooting in Washington,
I
D.C., to the acquittal this summer of
George Zimmerman in the murder of
unarmed, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in
Florida, a coalition of activist groups and
organizers have initiated the all-day Oct. 1
Oregon Conference on Youth, Guns and
Violence, at the First Unitarian Church on
S.W. 12th and Salmon in downtown
Portland, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. There is room for
hundreds of participants, with 12 workshops
during the day, plus a community town hall,
6-9 p.m. on Tuesday night.
Our coalition felt that issues of racial
profiling, so-called “stand your ground” laws,
the school-to-prison pipeline, mass
shootings from Virginia Tech to Sandy
Hook, the killing of Keaton Otis here in
Portland and that of Oscar Grant in
Oakland, and a culture of violence (locally
and globally) that sees marginalizing the
poor and “objectifying” shooting victims as
“other” (whether those “others” are
Newtown first graders, or Congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona), demand a
community response here in the Northwest.
Members of our coalition, either at the
Conference itself, or later in October, hope
to bring Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon’s mom, to
speak in Portland. We have also invited
several national speakers (we will see if
their schedules match our Conference date),
including Newtown parents (two of them
were in Hillsboro in August re the
shootings), Gabi and Mark Giffords (they
have toured seven states so far, this
summer, for better gun laws), and we have
invited local speakers like relatives of
victims in the Clackamas Mall shooting.
Sisters of the Road, Street Roots,
Portland Jobs with Justice, Young Minds of
Awareness at McCoy Academy, Portland
Parents Union, PSU Progressive Student
Union, and the Center for Intercultural
Organizing, have all endorsed the
conference, among others.
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Sisters of the Road will be doing a
workshop on “Criminalizing the Poor.”
Other workshops will address fighting The
American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC), and the National Rifle Association
in an effort to pass sensible gun laws in
Oregon; a Healing Hurt People workshop
with local doctors; a gun turn-in event with
CeaseFire Oregon; a workshop by Portland
Parents Union, plus workshops that address
discrimination against gays, racial profiling,
economic violence, adequate mental health
services, and the war on women.
Lastly, the conference will seek to identify
concrete ways to curb the power of groups
such as ALEC and the NRA. For the
Conference, $10 donations at the door will
be accepted, but no one will be turned away
for being poor.
For our Oct. 1 conference, like Aeschylus,
we believe it is important “to make gentler
the life of the world” — from Clackamas Mall
and Thurston High to the streets of Florida,
and from Gitmo to Damascus.