BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2019
30 YEARS
“As long as we
continue to
do what we’re
doing here, I
don’t see us being shut
down.”
Continued from Page 1A
The prison in its original
confi guration was built
for $3.7 million but it has
expanded since, with new
buildings boosting its capacity
from 150 inmates to the cur-
rent 366. Dan Johnson was
Powder River’s fi rst superin-
tendent. He served two stints
in that position, through 1994
and again from 1998 until he
retired in 2006.
(The facility won’t grow any
larger, as the current capac-
ity is the maximum for the
property, superintendent Tom
McLay said.)
About 100 people work
at Powder River — 79
employees of the Oregon
Department of Corrections,
and another 20 who are
part of the New Directions
Northwest staff that runs
the prison’s alcohol and drug
treatment program in which
128 inmates are enrolled.
Geddes, who has worked
at Powder River for 11 years,
said she doesn’t think the fa-
cility’s relatively low profi le is
a negative — it’s not a retail
business that needs to attract
customers, after all.
“It probably means we’re
being good neighbors, and
I think that’s a good thing,”
Geddes said of her occasional
conversations with residents
who know little or nothing
about Powder River.
McLay, who has worked at
Powder River since July 2017
and was promoted from secu-
rity manager to the prison’s
superintendent in October
of this year, said the facility’s
security record likely also
contributes to its anonymity.
Powder River hasn’t had
an inmate escape from the
facility, or from a work crew
outside the fence, since 2006.
“Protection of the com-
munity is our number one
priority,” McLay said.
Most of the 58 inmates who
have escaped either from in-
side the prison or while work-
ing outside did so during the
fi rst six years of operation —
44 in all during that period,
including 26 who scaled the
fence, which did not originally
include its topping of razor-
sharp wire.
The Department of Cor-
rections installed that extra
barrier in February 1996.
After that, just three
inmates got away from inside
the prison grounds, and none
of the three climbed the fence.
Several who tried to do so
failed — and some suffered
cuts during the attempt.
But McLay and Geddes say
that the razor wire, though it
has proved to be an effec-
tive deterrent, isn’t the only
reason escapes from Powder
River stopped.
They also cite the AIP
— Alternate Incarceration
Program — which started
at Powder River in January
2003.
A total of 128 inmates are
enrolled in the program, un-
der which they can qualify to
be released up to a year early
if they complete alcohol and
drug treatment.
Once released, men in the
AIP program remain under
custody of the Department of
Corrections for three months,
during which they have to
attend meetings and achieve
other criteria or risk being
returned to prison (although
they would be incarcerated
somewhere other than Pow-
der River).
Inmates in the AIP pro-
gram have an incentive to
stay in the program, McLay
and Geddes said.
James Simpson, a correc-
tional offi cer who is Powder
River’s longest-tenured
employee, having started in
February 1990, just three
months after the facility
opened, agrees that the addi-
tion of the AIP program had
a profound effect on inmates’
— Dennis Walton, director of
New Directions Northwest’s
alcohol and drug treatment
program at Powder River
Correctional Facility
S. John Collins / Baker City Herald
Debi Geddes takes care of some paper work for an inmate, left, at the prison's lunchroom.
“Protection of the community is our
number one priority.”
— Tom McLay, superintendent, Powder River
Correctional Facility in Baker City
“I think it has been successful. I really
don’t think it’s had any negative impacts
on the community.”
— Richard Chaves, member of the local prison
siting committee in the late 1980s
attitudes. Simpson believes
that has played a more
important role in reducing es-
capes than physical barriers
such as the razor wire.
Simpson also credits the
BEACON project — Baker
Emergency Alert Countywide
Network. The project, which
includes local law enforce-
ment agencies, is designed
to rapidly spread the word,
via radio, social media and
other outlets, of public safety
concerns, including escapes
from Powder River.
Simpson said prison of-
fi cials make sure inmates
are aware of the project, and
that if they did escape their
chances of getting away
would be reduced.
Nor is early release the
only benefi t that Powder
River inmates stand to gain
from participation in the AIP
program, said Dennis Walton,
who works for New Direc-
tions Northwest and directs
its award-winning alcohol
and drug treatment program.
Inmates who are in treat-
ment, including those who
aren’t in the AIP program
and can’t qualify for early
release, can overcome the
addictions that in most cases
contributed to their commit-
ting the crime that brought
them to Powder River, Walton
said.
About 80 percent of crimes
involve alcohol and drug use
in some way, he said.
Powder River’s treatment
program, the largest in
Oregon’s corrections system
and the only one in which a
contractor runs the program
inside the facility, has a suc-
cess rate between 80% and
90%, Walton said
“They’re actually getting
better,” he said of the inmates
who complete the program.
Walton said the treatment
regimen’s effi cacy is one
reason he believes Powder
River’s future is secure.
“As long as we continue to
do what we’re doing here, I
don’t see us being shut down,”
Walton said.
McLay also said the Cor-
rections Department’s budget
has been stable over the past
several years.
But the prison’s status
hasn’t always been so certain.
In both 2001 and 2002,
Powder River was on a list
of state prisons slated for po-
tential closure due to budget
cuts.
A more signifi cant fi nancial
crisis in 2010 led to the Cor-
rections Department propos-
ing to close three minimum-
security prisons, including
Powder River. Closing the
Baker City prison would have
saved the state an estimated
$7.9 million per year.
But Gov. Ted Kulongoski
rejected that plan.
And Powder River hasn’t
been on any closure lists in
the past decade.
Which is not to say the
facility has been immune to
budget challenges.
In 2010 the state ended a
subsidy that made it possible
for as many as 10 crews of 10
inmates each doing a variety
of jobs outside the prison.
Today Powder River has
only one such crew. Its duties
include maintenance around
the Baker County Library,
the Oregon Trail Interpretive
Center and the Senior Center.
McLay said Powder
River also has two 20-man
crews available to help with
wildfi res when needed — one
crew that works on the fi re
itself, and another that can
operate a kitchen at a fi re
camp.
Karen Yeakley, a former
Baker City mayor who serves
as chair of Powder River’s
Prison Advisory Commit-
tee, believes the work crews
helped ease residents’
concerns about the potential
effects of the prison, fears
that some people expressed
after community leaders in
the late 1980s started lobby-
ing state offi cials to build the
facility here.
Yeakley’s fi rst involvement
with Powder River, not long
after it opened, was to help
serve cake and ice cream to
inmates as a reward for their
work in the community.
Since then Yeakley has
taught budget classes at the
prison and done a variety of
other tasks. She’s also been
a vocal proponent of the ben-
efi cial effects of Powder River,
and in particular the alcohol
and drug treatment program.
“She’s our biggest support-
er,” Geddes said of Yeakley.
For her part, Yeakley said
it just makes sense that the
Corrections Department
would focus on the underlying
issue with so many crimes by
not merely housing inmates
but also striving to help them
deal with the alcohol and
drug abuse.
“I’d rather have somebody
getting out who’s not going to
re-offend,” Yeakley said. “New
Directions does a great job. It’s
a very positive thing.”
Although addiction treat-
ment, and its attendant ef-
fects on recidivism rates, has
been a hallmark of Powder
River, Baker City’s original
goal in lobbying state offi cials
for the facility was to boost
the economy, said Richard
Chaves, who was a member
of the prison siting committee
created by the Baker County
Court (today’s Baker County
Board of Commissioners) in
early 1987.
“It was going to create
jobs here and it was going
to stimulate the economy,”
Chaves said.
He said Peggi Timm, a long-
time Baker City promoter,
was “leading the charge,” and
she asked him to help write
grant applications for the
prison project.
Timm, who died in July
2013 at age 74, was also a
member of the prison siting
committee.
Baker City competed with
La Grande, among other
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places, for what became Pow-
der River. It was the fi rst new
prison the state had built in a
dozen years, and the fi rst in a
series of several facilities that
opened between 1989 and
2007.
Baker City offered the state
an 8.9-acre parcel, owned by
Ellingson Lumber Co., for
no cost. Local leaders raised
about one-third of the price of
the parcel through business
and personal donations, El-
lingson Lumber reduced the
price of the property, and Bak-
er City contributed $32,000 by
forgiving grant repayments to
Ellingson Lumber.
On Jan. 13, 1988, a state
prison siting panel had a
three-hour public hearing in
Baker City to take testimony
from local proponents and
from La Grande offi cials,
which offered the state a
5-acre parcel.
The next day the panel
voted 4-1 to recommend
the state build the prison
in Baker City. On March 2,
1988, Goldschmidt, the gov-
ernor, approved that recom-
mendation.
Although both Chaves and
Yeakley recall some residents
expressing concern about
“camp followers” — that fami-
lies of inmates would move to
Baker City — that phenom-
enon didn’t materialize.
And that’s no coincidence,
Geddes and McLay said.
Powder River is what’s
known as a “releasing facil-
ity,” Geddes said.
What that means, among
other things, is that inmates
rarely are at Powder River for
more than three or four years,
with a two-year stay being
more typical, she said.
Inmates are either sent to
Powder River because their
sentence is relatively short, or
because they’re nearing the
end of a longer incarceration,
she said.
Because most inmates are
from west of the Cascades, it
makes little sense for their
families to move 300 miles
or more for a relatively short
period, Geddes said — even
presuming the families can
afford to do so.
Indeed, she said families of
most Powder River inmates
aren’t able even to visit often,
much less to move.
Visitors are allowed on
Saturdays, Sundays and
holidays.
“We don’t have the volume
of visitors that bigger institu-
tions have,” Geddes said.
Inmates are able to use
their earnings from work —
about 74% of the inmates
have regular jobs, alcohol and
drug treatment counting as
work — to have video visits
with relatives, Geddes said.
(Although inmates can
also text family, they do so
through a secure system, not
through the internet, and
they’re limited to commu-
nicating with people on a
list approved by Corrections
Department offi cials.)
Chaves said he believes
Powder River has achieved
the goals that local leaders
had more than three decades
ago.
“I think it has been suc-
cessful,” he said. “I really don’t
think it’s had any negative
impacts on the community.”
In fact, Chaves said the
most frequent concern he has
heard over the years regard-
ing Powder River involved the
prison being on a closure list,
and residents worried that
the facility would close and
the community would lose one
of its larger employers.
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