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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2017
Prison use: ‘I think we could sit down and find some common ground’
Continued from Page 1A
histories. But some have questioned
whether sentencing orders are too
severe, particularly for felons who
receive probation, making it more
likely they will fail to meet the con-
ditions and get sent to prison.
“I think what our county needs
to do is the players need to sit down
together in a room and make some
negotiations on what can we do,”
said Lt. Kristen Hanthorn, who leads
the Sheriff’s Office Parole and Pro-
bation Division. “Are we identifying
the right people? Are we placing the
right people on probation or should
these people be going to prison on a
first sentence?
“Are we sending people to prison
because they’re still using drugs,
when they’re a drug addict and they
haven’t been able to get into good
treatment?”
Judge Paula Brownhill, the pre-
siding judge of the Circuit Court,
hopes to meet soon with Marquis,
Hanthorn and others on whether
sentencing and probation can — or
should — be improved.
“I think we could sit down and
find some common ground,” the
judge said. “I hope we can, because
we’re going to try that.”
Justice reinvestment
Over the past decade, 33 states
have experimented with justice
reinvestment to contain the explo-
sive growth in spending on cor-
rections and confront the trou-
bling number of felons who commit
new crimes after they get out of
prison.
States spent $53 billion on correc-
tions in 2012, according to the Coun-
cil of State Governments, and an esti-
mated 40 percent of people released
from prison wind up returning within
three years.
In Oregon, the prison population
swelled by nearly 50 percent between
2000 and 2010, the Oregon Criminal
Justice Commission found, and the
state’s two-year corrections budget
has grown to $1.6 billion.
Justice reinvestment can help
states better control the prison pop-
ulation and, ideally, take the money
saved by reducing prison use to help
counties identify felons who can be
supervised locally.
Oregon law
The justice reinvestment law
approved by the state Legislature
in 2013 made sentencing changes
for drug and property crimes and
authorized grants to counties to
devise ways to divert offenders from
prison. Felons on probation are eligi-
ble for earned discharge, where they
can shave up to 50 percent off their
supervision if they pay any restitu-
tion owed and complete treatment or
other terms. The law also encouraged
the state Department of Corrections
to select more inmates for short-term
transitional leave, enabling inmates
to get out of prison 90 days early —
up from 30 days — to smooth their
re-entry into the community.
The goals of the law are to reduce
prison use, lower recidivism, increase
public safety and hold offenders
accountable.
At the time the law was passed,
Oregon planned to open a new prison
at Junction City for men by this year
and a new prison for women at the
former Oregon State Penitentiary
minimum security facility in Salem.
Over the past few years, the
growth in the prison population for
men has stabilized. The state had to
expand the Deer Ridge Correctional
Institution in Madras last year to han-
dle more prisoners, but there is no
new prison in Junction City.
“That’s huge, right? I mean we
avoided building a prison and having
it up and running,” Michael Schmidt,
the executive director of the Oregon
Criminal Justice Commission, said in
a speech at the Justice Reinvestment
summit in Salem in February.
The women’s prison population
is more complicated. During the past
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
District Attorney Josh Marquis holds up case files from his office on Phillip Ferry — who shot and killed
Seaside Police Sgt. Jason Goodding — during a press conference on the shooting last year.
two decades, the women’s population
has nearly tripled and the only wom-
en’s prison — Coffee Creek Correc-
tional Facility in Wilsonville — is
overcrowded. Gov. Kate Brown has
placed $17.5 million in her proposed
budget for a second women’s prison.
Long term, though, the trend is
promising.
The latest forecast by the state
Office of Economic Analysis esti-
mated the prison population will
increase 4 percent over the next
decade, from 14,684 last September
to 15,273 in September 2026. Ore-
gon’s population is pegged to rise by
12.2 percent over the same time, so
the incarceration rate is projected to
fall by 7.7 percent.
County grants
The state has awarded nearly $54
million in grants to counties for jus-
tice reinvestment over the past two
budget cycles. Gov. Brown has rec-
ommended $32 million more in her
budget.
Local public safety coordinating
councils in each county decide how
to spend the grants.
Some of the grants have been
used for better pretrial assessments to
determine whether defendants need
mental health or substance abuse
treatment. Money has been used
to improve probation so offenders
diverted from prison are well super-
vised. Grants have also been spent to
help offenders find drug or alcohol
treatment and transitional housing.
Clatsop County has received
more than $600,000 in grants and has
used some of the money to hire a new
probation officer. The county has also
spent money on substance abuse and
sex offender treatment and housing
assistance.
Ross Caldwell, the justice rein-
vestment liaison at the Oregon Crim-
inal Justice Commission, said each
county has unique issues. Criminal
justice decisions filter through police
and prosecutors to judges and pro-
bation officers, and some counties
have higher crime rates, more serious
crimes and more prosecutions than
others.
One woman in Seaside who
received a 30-year prison sentence
last year for embezzling more than
$214,000 from local businesses
pushed Clatsop County’s prison use
higher, for example, although the
county remains high even with that
stiff sentence factored out.
“We’re not trying to vilify any-
body with this stuff,” said Caldwell,
a former deputy district attorney in
Multnomah County. “We’re just try-
ing to track it as best we can.”
State lawmakers, however, are
looking for results.
“This is an investment,” Cald-
well said of the attitude in Salem.
“What is our return on our invest-
ment, because if you’re just going to
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Judge Paula Brownhill listens to
arguments from a defense law-
yer in 2015.
Lt. Kristen Hanthorn
use more prison, why should we give
you money?
“You could do that with no
money.”
Chances
Fed up with a criminal justice sys-
tem that often appears to give felons a
break, Oregon voters have taken sen-
tencing reform into their own hands.
Measure 11, approved by vot-
ers in 1994, set mandatory mini-
mum prison sentences for violent
crimes like murder, rape, robbery and
assault. Measure 57, which passed in
2008, applied tougher sentences to
drug and property crimes.
Worried about the cost — and
wisdom — of sending more people
to prison, state lawmakers used the
justice reinvestment law to soften
sentences for Measure 57 crimes.
Marquis, a veteran prosecutor
who is an influential voice on crim-
inal justice issues, has been skeptical
of justice reinvestment from the start.
In 2015, the District Attorney’s
Office went to Circuit Court to chal-
lenge the earned-discharge provision
of the law, arguing that it gives pro-
bation officers more discretion over
sentences than prosecutors or judges.
Judge Philip Nelson worked out a
compromise that requires felons to
complete their time on probation, but
not necessarily under the close super-
vision of the probation office.
Marquis said many defendants
in Clatsop County who go to prison
for drug and property crimes have a
string of prior felonies.
“I’m very leery of what they con-
sider a ‘success,’” Marquis said in an
email. “By their definition, any time
someone does not go to prison it’s a
success.”
Policy experts warn against crim-
inal justice reform by anecdote, but
individual, high-profile crimes can
shape public perception. The trail
of blame for why a convicted felon
is not in prison is often long and
unforgiving.
State Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, and Clatsop County Sher-
iff Tom Bergin were critical of jus-
tice reinvestment last year after the
fatal shooting of Seaside Police Sgt.
Jason Goodding. Phillip Ferry, who
had 17 felony convictions and was
on parole, shot Goodding in a strug-
gle during an arrest. Ferry, a chronic
drug abuser who was well-known
among law enforcement, was shot
and killed by another police officer.
Marquis does not measure suc-
cess by convictions or the amount
of time felons spend in prison, but
wonders how many chances people
should get. He believes the felons
who are going to prison for drug and
property crimes belong in prison.
“My office doesn’t look at data.
We look at people. The defendant,
the victim, the crime,” Marquis said
in an email. “How egregious was the
original crime? What was the harm
to the victim, the community? What
was the defendant’s attitude? What
was the defendant’s previous crimi-
nal record?
“Each of these cases need to be
taken very much individually.”
Downward departure
The probation officer hired in
Clatsop County with justice rein-
vestment grant money helps pro-
vide more intensive supervision for
offenders who are on what are known
as downward-departure sentences.
Under Oregon sentencing guide-
lines, departure sentences are outside
the typical range given the severity of
the crime and the defendant’s crim-
inal history. A downward departure
means a lesser sentence.
But downward-departure sen-
tences stem from agreements
between prosecutors and defense
attorneys — and executed by judges
— that can set offenders up for fail-
ure. Prosecutors in Marquis’ office
do not agree to structured sanctions
for probation violations — like a few
days in the county jail for a urine
sample that tests positive for drugs.
Instead, violations come back before
the judge for review.
Prosecutors almost always expect
these defendants to waive earned dis-
charge, one of the tools offered by
justice reinvestment. The agreements
may also require that if probation is
revoked, the offender is not eligible
for an alternative incarceration pro-
gram that could result in an early
release from prison.
“When the court directs us to
bring them back before the judge
every time we find that they’ve done
something wrong, it really wears
people out,” Lt. Hanthorn of the
Parole and Probation Division said.
“It wears out the offender. It wears
out the court. It wears out the DA’s
office. It wears out the POs.
“And I think we’re setting our-
selves up to fail those offenders.”
Last year, Clatsop County had
significantly more cases with down-
ward-departure sentences than neigh-
boring Columbia and Tillamook
counties. State justice reinvestment
data shows that Clatsop County also
has a high level of prison use for pro-
bation revocations, especially for
property crimes.
“So we have to constantly fight a
battle — a tug of war — over whether
somebody could be treated in the
community or whether it’s time for
them to go to prison,” Hanthorn said.
Pretrial release
Even if Marquis were to agree to
more sentences with structured sanc-
tions, overcrowding at the county jail
could prevent probation officers from
using short stints behind bars to con-
trol offenders’ behavior and reduce
probation revocations that lead to
prison. The 60-bed jail is often at or
over capacity.
Hanthorn has spoken with Judge
Brownhill and Lt. Matt Phillips, the
jail commander, about adding a pre-
trial release officer who would assess
whether defendants have ties — like
a job, home or family — that make
them less likely to miss court dates if
they are released from custody pend-
ing trial.
Typically, about 70 percent of
inmates at the county jail are await-
ing trial, a figure many believe is too
high.
“We would be identifying those
subjects that could be monitored —
not in custody during their pretrial —
without creating a risk to the commu-
nity,” Phillips said.
Releasing more defendants before
trial could free up beds at the jail for
probation officers to sanction the fel-
ons at risk of violating probation and
going to prison.
Pretrial assessments would also
give judges more information about
defendants earlier in the process,
which could eventually lead to more
effective screening for behavioral or
substance abuse problems.
“The more information that
judges have, the better decisions we
make,” Brownhill said.
Alternative incarceration
programs
Hanthorn is critical of prison sen-
tences where offenders are not eligi-
ble for an alternative incarceration
program, which provides treatment
in prison and a path to early release.
Prosecutors want to ensure
inmates are held accountable and
serve their sentences, a standard that
can be undermined by generous time
off.
But Hanthorn believes such orders
can hurt the community in the long
run, since offenders will likely return
to the county on parole and will need
extra help if they did not get coun-
seling or treatment in prison. Clat-
sop County, like other rural counties,
has struggled with gaps in the men-
tal health safety net and the lack of
drug and alcohol treatment options
for people who do not have private
insurance.
“They’re going to come back
here,” Hanthorn said.
Port: Hellberg has commercially fished for more than 50 years
Continued from Page 1A
Campbell, the owner of Campbell
Marine Towing & Construction who
filed last month, said he has a great
deal of enthusiasm for the Port. “I think
we’re moving ahead a little bit, in spite
of the micromanagement that goes on
with those two people,” he said, refer-
ring to Fulton and Hunsinger.
Fulton, elected in in 2013, painted a
bleaker picture of the Port, saying the
agency has disregarded long-term main-
tenance and regulatory compliance.
Hellberg vs. Rohne
Hellberg, who served three terms on
the Warrenton City Commission before
stepping down in 2014, said part of
what galvanized him to run were com-
ments by Port Commission Chairman
Robert Mushen last year advising the
Port Commission not to take sides in the
Columbia River gillnetting issue. Hell-
berg has commercially fished for more
than 50 years on the Columbia River
and in Alaska.
“The first job is to help create jobs in
our area, not to put them down, and cer-
tainly (to) support our traditional indus-
tries,” Hellberg said.
Along with fishing, Hellberg is a
marine surveyor, served in the U.S.
Marine Corps, taught in Knappa and
Warrenton-Hammond school districts,
served as principal of Fort Stevens
Junior High School until 1980 and later
served on the Warrenton-Hammond
School Board.
In his youth, Hellberg worked on
Port property in a flour mill, in can-
neries and as a longshoreman. He said
the Port needs to capitalize on its posi-
tion at the mouth of the Columbia
and promote living-wage jobs beyond
the tourist industry, which he added
result in high employment but low pay
and workers struggling to make ends
meet.
Asked why he applied for the same
position as Rohne, Hellberg said he had
to oppose someone.
“I know he was on the County Com-
mission,” Hellberg said of Rohne. “I
can’t say I’m a fan of what the County
Commission has done over the last few
years.”
Rohne, who owns and operates
Brownsmead Island Farm, filed last
month for the election, saying his hope
is to bring an intelligent and indepen-
dent approach that will help the Port
build stability, public trust and positive
working relationships with local, state
and national partners.
O’Grady vs. Spence
O’Grady, an auto mechanic, farmer
in Cornelius and a local longshoreman
for the past several years, said he filed
for the Port to improve transparency at
the agency and to make sure the Port
better follows the bylaws.
“The bylaws have not been fol-
lowed,” he said, echoing a common
argument by Fulton.
Spence, who moved to Astoria in
2013, said his newness could help avoid
the friction that has plagued the Port
Commission. A city manager for about
45 years at six different cities in Flor-
ida, Spence said he has experience with
multimillion-dollar budgets and inter-
facing with elected boards.
Dick Hellberg
Dirk Rohne