Street roots., December 16, 2016, Page 5, Image 5

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D e c . 1 6 -2 2 , 2 0 1 6
closure of its jail in 2017 due to dire
account In the last biennium, Multnomah
financial straits could mean further
County received the largest chunk, with a
over his life.
increases in its contribution of inmates to
grant of $8.1 million.
Part of his sentence included a two-hour
state prisons.
Multnomah County leads the state in
tour of Oregon State Penitentiary, which he
Schmidt said that without a jail to house
cumulative reduction of prison sentences,
said had a big impact
people awaiting sentencing, they could rack
but a handful of counties have actually
“It gave me a look of where I would be
up more crimes that would lead to stiffer
increased the number of people they send
going,” he said, “and where I didn’t want to
and lengthier prison sentences.
to prison for drug and property crimes,
go. It helped me a lot.”
Additionally, probation programs offered
despite receiving money to do the opposite.
Now, he said, “he’s on a track of no
in
the community lack the teeth they need
With budget cuts to the program looming,
return.” He’s even become a mentor to a
for compliance when there is no jail to send
those counties could potentially lose their
foster child who was adopted by one of his
people to for probation
justice reinvestment
friends.
violation
sanctions.
funding, said Mike
“You can’t be a mentor if you’re a
The governor’s
"W e ll be talking to our
Schmidt, director of
criminal,” he said.
proposed closure of the
legislators over the next six
the Criminal Justice
We also checked back in with Carole
psychiatric hospital in
Commission.
months," said Scott Taylor,
Hinojosa, who was featured in our initial
Junction City could also
Leading up to the
director of Multnomah
coverage of the Justice Reinvestment
mean an uptick in
current biennium,
County Department of Com­
Program.
incarceration.
proponents of the
She grew up in a drug house in deep
munity
Justice.
Conversations
“Anytime you lose
Justice Reinvestment
Southeast Portland in the 1970s, where, she
mental health
w
ill
be
about
convincing
Program argued it
said, she began her long affair with alcohol
capacity,” Schmidt said,
legislators that it doesn't
needed an investment
and methamphetamine when she was just 8
“it affects the
make sense to make cnts to
years old. She had done time in prison when of $58 million.
Department of
The Legislature gave a program that manages a
she was 28, and when she entered the
Corrections.”
it much less, with a
prison-destined population
program she was looking at a 46 to
budget of $38 million.
50-month prison sentence for assaulting
for one third of the cost to the
That investment
someone when she was drunk and high on
cott Taylor is the
state, he said.
helped the state avoid
meth.
director of
roughly $52 million to
She excitedly told us she’s still “doing
Multnomah County
$56 million in
really great.” This month she finished her
Department of
corrections costs, on top of what it would
first term at Portland Community College
Community Justice, which oversees the
have cost to open a new prison, Schmidt
with a 3.7 GPA, she said.
justice reinvestment process locally. He said
said.
She’s studying to be an alcohol and drug
the program simply “can’t take a hit”
But that “avoided cost” is not the same
counselor.
financially.
thing as “cost savings,” he said, as
“Not a lot of counselors that have a
“We’ll be talking to our legislators over
corrections costs go up each year.
background like mine,” she said. “People
the next six months,” he said.
“To actually achieve savings,” he said, “we
Conversations will be about convincing
with a lot of childhood trauma need
would need to close a prison.”
legislators that it doesn’t make sense to
someone who relates to childhood trauma.”
With Oregon facing .significant budgetary
' make cuts to a program that manages h
After her first 120 days of intensive
shortfalls in the upcoming budget cycle,
probation she moved into recovery housing,
prison-destined population for one-third of
Gov. Kate Brown is proposing an allocation
and later this month, she’ll be moving out
the cost to the state, he said.
to the program of just $32 million for the
While the county’s initial report on the
on her own.
next two years.
program found that it is keeping people out
“I went from living under a bridge for 10
Schmidt said the fact that she didn’t cut
of prison without increasing recidivism
years to having my own apartment,” she
the
program completely, given the
within the community, there were some
said. “They gave me the opportunity to
circumstances, shows her support. But, with negative outcomes as well.
change my life.”
less money to go around, he said, “we’re
In January, a damning report by the
taking a hard look at counties that have not
MacArthur Foundation revealed widespread
decreased usage of prisons for property and
disparity at every level of the Multnomah
ach of Oregon’s 36 counties receives
drug crimes.”
justice reinvestment grant money, doled
County justice system.
Those counties include Washington,
The period studied for the county’s
out by the state’s Criminal Justice
Clatsop, Linn, Jackson and Josephine.
report on its Justice Reinvestment Program
Commission based on a formula that takes
And in Josephine County, the likely
the county’s size and population into
INCARCERATION, from page 4
S
E
ended about six months earlier,
unsurprisingly exhibiting the same
disparities.
While fewer participants in the Justice
Reinvestment Program were sent to prison
across all racial and ethnic groups, white
and Asian offenders were less likely than
black and Hispanic offenders to receive a
prison sentence after the assessment phase.
Whites and Asians were also more likely
to opt in to the program, although after the
program became established, the number of
people opting out dropped dramatically.
Schmidt said he doesn’t know how this
compares to other Oregon counties because
detailed data on racial and ethnic disparities
hasn’t been analyzed at this level elsewhere
in the state.
“At least they had the guts to look in the
mirror,” he said. “You have to give them
credit for asking tough questions.”
The report’s authors indicated “more
evidence is needed to determine what is
driving the disparity in prison sentences.”
Borg said he believes the disparity is
driven by implicit bias.
“The MacArthur report came out in
January - no one knew how bad it was,” he
said.
Another outcome of the program was the
increased use of Multnomah County jails.
With difficulties in coordinating multiple
schedules for risk assessments and
sentencing conferences, inmates were held
in jail longer leading up to sentencing.
Additionally, some participants who
received sentences served time in jail rather
than prison because the duration had been
shortened to less than a year.
When the program began, the Legislature
granted county jails an extra $5 million to
cover this uptick in jail use, but there was'
no money set aside for that cost in the
second biennium, said Caroline Wong, a
deputy district attorney who oversees the
Justice Reinvestment program for the
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
Office.
“We know that this is an issue, but we
don’t know how much,” she said.
emily@streetroots. org
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