Pubdate: Sun, 22 Apr 2007
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Copyright: 2007 The Oregonian
Contact:  http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/324
Author: Edward Walsh, The Oregonian
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?247 (Crime Policy - United States)

PRISON COSTS SHACKLING OREGON

The Benefits of Tough Sentencing Laws Diminish As the Prison System 
Expands, Researchers Say

Oregon is on the verge of a milestone: In the next two years, the 
state will spend tens of millions more tax money to lock up prison 
inmates than it does to educate students at community colleges and 
state universities.

The trend results from more than a decade of explosive prison growth 
largely fueled by Measure 11, the 1994 ballot initiative that 
mandated lengthy sentences for violent crimes. Since then, the number 
of inmates has nearly doubled and spending on prisons has nearly tripled.

As legislators and the governor debate how much money to spend on 
schools and higher education, there is little discussion in Salem on 
spiraling prison costs.

Oregon taxpayers now spend roughly the same money to incarcerate 
13,401 inmates as they do to educate 438,000 university and community 
college students. But spending on prisons is growing at a faster rate 
than education and other state services.

The Department of Corrections and Oregon Youth Authority budget is 
projected to grow 19 percent in the next two years, to $1.66 billion, 
under Gov. Ted Kulongoski's budget -- $174 million more than what 
Kulongoski proposes to spend on universities and colleges.

University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer has warned lawmakers 
of a "growing crisis in Oregon and nationally at the intersection of 
corrections systems and other public priorities."

That's because the state budget essentially is a zero-sum game. 
Education, human services and public safety, including the Department 
of Corrections, account for 93 percent of state spending. Without tax 
increases, money that goes to one of those isn't available for the others.

Why do prison costs soar beyond population growth? Since June 1995 
after Measure 11 took effect, the prison population has grown from 
7,539 to 13,401 inmates, including 5,387 Measure 11 offenders.

To keep them locked up, the state has built three prisons and 
expanded five others the past decade. Another new prison -- Oregon's 
14th -- opens this fall. A 15th prison, probably in Medford, would 
open in 2012.

Oregon is not alone -- a prison boom has reshaped the national 
landscape. The federal and state prison population has grown from 
fewer than 190,000 in 1970 to 1.5 million by 2005, due in large part 
to tough-on-crime laws that imposed longer sentences for violent and 
habitual offenders.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Oregon's annual per 
inmate cost of $24,665 made it the nation's 24th most expensive 
prison system to operate in 2005.

Decline in Crime Levels Off

With so many criminals locked up, both Oregon and the nation have 
seen a steady decline in violent crime rates. In Oregon, there were 
about five violent crimes -- homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated 
assault -- per 1,000 population in the 1980s compared with 2.8 crimes in 2005.

But the decline has leveled off in recent years. A growing consensus 
among researchers concludes that the benefits of longer sentences 
diminish as a state prison system grows. Their studies show that each 
new cell added to a prison system has less impact on crime than 
earlier additions because so many career criminals already are locked up.

After reviewing numerous studies of the link between incarceration 
and crime rates, the Vera Institute of Justice in New York said in a 
recent report: "Analysts are nearly unanimous in their conclusion 
that continued growth in incarceration will prevent considerably 
fewer, if any, crimes -- and at substantially greater cost to taxpayers."

Such findings have spurred states such as Washington to study 
alternatives to building more prisons. In a report last year 
commissioned by the Legislature, the Washington State Institute for 
Public Policy concluded that expansion of proven treatment and 
prevention programs would reduce the need for new prison beds. Steve 
Aos, associate director of the institute, estimates such programs 
would save taxpayers as much as $2.6 billion in prison construction 
and operations between now and 2030.

Diminishing Returns

Experts suggest that Measure 11 has reached the point of diminishing returns.

A recent study by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, a state 
agency, concluded that the number of crimes prevented each year by 
adding one inmate to the Oregon prison system has declined from 
nearly 30 per new inmate in 1994 to slightly more than 10 crimes in 2005.

The cost-benefit ratio of prison expansion has also diminished. In 
1994, each additional $1 spent on incarceration yielded $3.31 in 
reduced crime costs, the study said. By 2005, the benefit per $1 
spent was $1.03, barely above the break-even point.

Michael Wilson, an economist at the criminal justice commission and 
co-author of the study, said the calculation was based on an estimate 
of the costs of various types of crimes, including the costs to 
victims, to determine the dollar benefit of each crime that is 
prevented through incarceration. Because the number of crimes 
prevented per each new inmate declines as a prison system grows 
larger, the ratio of that benefit to the costs of incarceration also declines.

Craig Prins, executive director of the justice commission and the 
study's other co-author, says their findings suggest that the 
Legislature should explore alternatives for fighting crime.

"That's what we gave up to build the prisons, and I see this session 
as a time to take advantage of that, to try to treat their addictions 
and change their thinking. I think there's evidence it's a good investment."

The Legislature has cut programs for offenders such as alcohol and 
drug abuse treatment and education programs, particularly after the 
recession forced deep cuts across state government in 2003.

It was during this time, according to the study, that the cost of 
paying off the debt accumulated during the building boom exceeded the 
cost of the treatment programs inside the prisons. Debt service to 
finance prison construction soared from $20 million in 1995-97 to 
$134 million in the next biennium.

Kulongoski's 2007-09 budget proposes to restore treatment programs. 
His budget calls for increasing mental health services from $17.7 
million to $28.9 million, increasing drug and alcohol abuse treatment 
from $2.1 million to $8.1 million and increasing education programs 
from $15.4 million to $16.8 million.

"This is the first time in probably the last 10 years that we've been 
able to invest and make a commitment to treatment issues in the 
corrections system and the juvenile justice system," said Joseph 
O'Leary, Kulongoski's senior adviser on public safety.

O'Leary estimates 75 percent to 80 percent of Oregon inmates need 
alcohol and drug treatment.

"We have to ask ourselves, if 98 percent of these people in prison 
are eventually going to get out, isn't it smart to be doing something 
with them while they're in custody to try to increase the odds 
they're not going to reoffend and create new victims?" O'Leary said.

Others would go beyond expanding treatment programs. David Rogers, 
executive director of the Partnership for Safety and Justice, an 
advocacy group, recommends that lawmakers increase the amount of time 
inmates can earn off their sentences beyond the existing 20 percent 
cap and extend a modest "earned time" benefit to Measure 11 inmates, 
who now aren't eligible for that benefit.

Oregon Department of Corrections Director Max Williams knows that 
running a prison system is expensive. "We are a cost center not a 
profit center," he likes to say.

But Williams argues that cost comparisons between his department and 
higher education can be misleading because universities and colleges 
have tuition and other sources of funding while prisons have only taxpayers.

He's impressed by the research of Aos in Washington and Prins and 
Wilson in Oregon on the diminishing returns of building more prisons. 
But Williams, a former Republican legislator, said decisions about 
public safety require more than economic calculations.

When Oregon voters approved Measure 11 in 1994 and reaffirmed that 
decision in 2000, Williams said, they made a choice about how they 
want the state to deal with certain crimes and the people who commit them.

"It is about the concept of . . . appropriate punishment, and that's 
written into our constitution. It's about personal responsibility and 
accountability."

Sequel to Measure 11

The chief sponsor of Measure 11 is Kevin Mannix, a former legislator 
and Republican candidate for governor. Mannix, a Salem lawyer, is 
gathering signatures for another ballot initiative that would expand 
mandatory minimum sentences from 14 months to 36 months for eight 
types of drug and property crimes, from selling methamphetamine to burglary.

The state reports that about 3,700 offenders a year were convicted of 
crimes listed in the Mannix initiative in recent years, and more them 
half of them were placed on probation. But it's difficult to 
accurately predict the impact on state prisons. Officials originally 
forecast that Measure 11 would add far more prisoners to the system 
than it actually did because analysts didn't foresee that prosecutors 
would use the leverage of Measure 11 sentences to obtain guilty pleas 
for lesser crimes carrying shorter sentences.

If it qualifies for the November 2008 ballot, Mannix's initiative 
will spark renewed debate over the effectiveness of incarceration in 
fighting crime.

Mannix argues that Measure 11 reduced violent crime, and his new 
version will do the same for property crime.

"Measure 11 cost money, but it didn't blow the budget," Mannix says. 
"When it comes to property crimes, my assertion is that the cost of 
not incarcerating offenders will be more than the cost of 
incarceration. . . . We all pay it through hidden costs and 
insurance, and the poor pay the most."

Critics of an incarceration strategy contend that the decline in 
violent crime cannot so easily be linked to Measure 11. In a 2004 
study, Judith A. Greene, an analyst at Justice Strategies in New 
York, compared what happened in Oregon and New York from 1995 to 2002.

Both states experienced a sharp reduction in violent crime. But New 
York, unlike Oregon, also cut its incarceration rate. More effective 
policing tactics instituted under then-New York City Mayor Rudy 
Giuliani are widely credited with the crime reduction.

The drop in Oregon's violent crime rate during the 1990s cannot be 
attributed primarily to Measure 11, Greene said in the report. The 
effect of the longer sentences would not be felt until years later, 
after inmates remained in prison beyond their likely release date 
under the old sentencing system.

"Measure 11 has cost Oregon an enormous amount of money," Greene said 
in an interview. "Here in New York, we're getting equal or better 
results, and we're saving money. If it were true that incarceration 
was the cause in Oregon and better policing was the cause in New 
York, you'd certainly choose better policing. You would choose the 
one that costs less."

William Spelman, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at 
the University of Texas, did some of the pioneering research on how 
states reap diminishing rewards as they build more prisons. He says 
the effectiveness of an incarceration strategy "depends mostly on who 
you're putting in that prison bed."

"If you are putting away drug offenders or burglars, it's almost 
certainly a waste of taxpayer money," Spelman says. "If they're armed 
robbers, maybe it does make sense."

[sidebar]

THE LAW DIDN'T DETER, BUT DID SIDELINE

Two Men's Urge for Meth Overpowered Fears of a Long Measure 11 Sentence

SALEM -- There is no way to know how many crimes, if any, have been 
prevented during the combined 17 years that Roger Rosling and Timothy 
Willard have been behind bars.

But preventing men such as Rosling and Willard from committing more 
crimes by locking them up for a long time was certainly the goal of 
Oregon voters when they approved Measure 11 in 1994.

Rosling, 48, and Willard, 41, are Measure 11 inmates at the Oregon 
State Correctional Institution. They are two of more than 5,000 
Measure 11 inmates in Oregon prisons.

Both men accepted plea agreements on charges of robbery that sent 
Rosling to prison for 11 years and eight months in 1997 and Willard 
for 15 years in 1999. Rosling is scheduled to be released in November 
2008 and Willard in February 2014.

Rosling's criminal history illustrates why voters approved Measure 11.

In 1986, he was sentenced to "up to 30 years" for robbery. But he 
didn't serve nearly that much time, because in 1997 he was back in 
court on two counts of robbery. Rosling said he robbed a tavern on 
Portland's east side near Interstate 205. He said he was armed with a 
pellet gun but didn't use it.

By then, Rosling had three prior convictions for "person crimes." 
According to an analysis by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, 
his sentence under pre-Measure 11 guidelines would have been almost 
exactly the 140 months he accepted under Measure 11.

But he also could have earned up to 28 months off his sentence. So 
without Measure 11, he might be free today.

Willard also had numerous prior convictions but for less serious 
property crimes. Armed with a handgun, he went on a 16-day spree, 
committing robberies in Washington, Clackamas and Marion counties.

In his plea agreement, he was sentenced to 180 months. Without 
Measure 11, his sentence would have been about 110 months.

In both cases, Measure 11 failed on one level. It did not serve as a 
deterrent. Both men said they were aware of the 1994 ballot measure 
and had given some thought to staying out of its clutches.

"I didn't want to do anything that would get me Measured 11, as we 
called it," Rosling said.

But both said their robberies were driven by a bigger motivation: 
feeding their methamphetamine habits.

"When you start playing around with drugs, you don't think about 
that," Willard said. "You don't think like a normal person, because 
if you did, you wouldn't be doing that in the first place."

Prison officials said Rosling and Willard have good records inside 
the institution and are productive workers in the print shop. The men 
said they believe they have conquered their meth habits and can stay 
out of trouble on the outside.

"I've just decided now I'm way too old for that stuff," said Rosling, 
who has spent about 20 of the past 24 years in Oregon prisons. 
"There's a pull there, still, even though I know it would be 
life-ending for me. I can't do another prison term." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake