December 28, 2016
Page 15
Sanctuary County
C ontinued FroM P age 3
began in the early 1980’s as an
interfaith movement and was
based upon the 19th century
Quaker safe houses that helped
many slaves escaped to freedom
on the Underground Railroad.
The entire state of Oregon
is a “sanctuary” state. Oregon
law provides that, “No law en-
forcement agency of the State
of Oregon or of any political
subdivision of the state shall use
agency moneys, equipment or
personnel for the purpose of de-
tecting or apprehending persons
whose only violation of law is
that they are persons of foreign
citizenship present in the United
States in violation of federal im-
migration laws.” The law means
that local police can’t ask for
documentation to verify the im-
Harmful Mass Incarceration
C ontinued FroM P age 2
solving social problems, Oregon’s
female imprisonment rate has be-
come higher in recent years than
the national average. Yet overall,
crime rates in Oregon are near his-
toric lows since the 1980s.
How to explain this discrepan-
cy? Have women suddenly begun
committing many more serious
and violent crimes that might jus-
tify locking up more of them for
longer? No, what is in fact hap-
pening is that women are being
punished more severely for the
same non-violent offenses than
they would have been years ago.
Most of the incarceration of
women in Oregon is for property
crimes, often driven by drug ad-
diction. The arrest rate of women
for property crimes fell 40 per-
cent between 1995 and 2014. Yet,
women’s average length of stay
in prison in Oregon for property
crimes has risen from 17 months
to 22 months in the last decade.
Measure 57, Oregon’s law on
sentencing offenders in repeat
property crimes, combines with
other sentencing legislation and
case law to result in women re-
ceiving much harsher sentences
than they would have gotten for
the same crime years ago. The leg-
islation was sold to voters as prop-
er punishment for the irredeem-
able criminal who has ignored
previous attempts at reform. But
in reality, charges are stacked up
against women appearing in court
for the first time in a way they can
be deemed a “repeat property of-
fender” and sent away to Coffee
migration status of a person that
has not been arrested and they
cannot arrest someone solely
because they are in violation of
immigration laws.
Incoming Portland Mayor Ted
Wheeler supported the sanctuary
movement in his campaign for
mayor and after Trump’s elec-
tion in November.
“We will always see ourselves
as a sanctuary city, and we
will continue to be welcoming
to everyone,” he said. “Presi-
dent-Elect Donald Trump will be
the president of all of America,
and that requires an understand-
ing of the values that drive Port-
land and other cities. These are
our values.”
Creek Correctional Facility hav-
ing never received a chance to do
better.
As advocates for women pris-
oners, we’re not asking for a
double standard that offers more
lenient treatment of women. We
want recognition and reform of
the laws and practices that have a
disproportionally large impact on
women and their families. We and
the many other supporters of crim-
inal justice reform in Oregon ac-
cept that property crime laws are
facially neutral. But the sentenc-
ing data speaks for itself: these
laws do have a disparate impact
on women.
Oregon needs to face head on
the clear links between addiction,
mental illness and property crime.
We need to understand that simply
locking women up cannot cure the
root causes of crime that so many
criminal justice experts consider
to be a public health issue. We
should look for a new approach
for women who can be safely and
appropriately held accountable in
other ways than imprisonment.
Bobbin Singh is the executive
director of the Oregon Justice Re-
source Center, and Julia Yoshimo-
to is the attorney and project
director for OJRC’s Women in
Prison project.
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C alendar
December 2016
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY
12
13
14
15
FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY
16
17
18
Barbara Emberley
born, 1932
Hovercraft Patented
(1955)
Poinsettia Day
National Cocoa Day
Susan B. Anthony
dollar coined in
1970
First Miniature Golf
Course Opened,
1929
South Pole Discov-
ered, 1911
Bill of Rights Day
Underdog Day
David McCord born,
1897
Beethoven’s Birth-
day (1770)
Boston Tea Party
Anniversary (1773)
19
20
21
22
23
Oatmeal Muffin Day
Dickens’ A Christ-
mas Carol pub-
lished in 1843
26
Boxing Day
Kwanzaa Begins
National Whiners
Day
Games Day
Electric Light
demonstrated in
1879
27
Ingri d’Aulaire born,
1904
Visit the Zoo Day
World Bank created
(1945)
First Day of Winter
Humbug Day
Bright Side Day
National Flashlight
Day
28
Card Playing Day
Iowa became the
29th state (1846)
National Chocolate
Day
R
First Christmas
Lights, 1882
Mercury Thermome-
ter Invented, 1714
29
Texas became the
28th state (1845)
Roots Day
Federal Reserve
System established
(1913)
30
Tiger Woods born,
1975
Author Rudyard
Kipling born, 1865
Wright Brother’s
First Flight (1903)
National Maple
Syrup Day
Wear a Plunger On
Your Head Day
Baseball great Ty
Cobb born, 1886
24
25
Hanukkah Begins
Christmas
Christmas Eve
National Pumpkin
Pie Day
National Egg Nog Day
Apollo 8 reached
moon, 1968
31
New Year’s Eve