Oregon Crime Drop Leads the Country
Article by Denise Welch
This September, the FBI released its annual statistical report on the national prevalence of crime: “Crime in the United States 2008.” The headlines from newspapers around the country heralded good news for much of the country:
“Fla. crime drops almost 8 percent 1st half of 2009” – The Miami Herald – Sep 23, 2009
“FBI report: Crime down in Plymouth” – The Mirror (Massachusetts) – Sep 20, 2009
“Violent crime declines in Detroit area, FBI report says” – Detroit Free Press – Sep 15, 2009
The best news, however, came from right here in Oregon: Our rate of violent crime dropped 10.6% from 2007 to 2008, the largest decrease in the nation, and property crimes also dropped by almost 7%. The last time the violent crime rate was this low was 1970. The property crime rate has not been lower since 1966 and is now within two percentage points of the national average. Both of these rates are record lows for Oregon.
The report clearly shows that Oregon is doing something right. There’s a bit of a debate about exactly what contributed to the impressive decline, but one thing is clear – it wasn’t Measure 11, despite what our opponents are trying to sell. What we do know is that states that don’t have mandatory minimum sentencing like Measure 11 have seen similar to greater drops in crime.
Substantial credit certainly belongs to the Oregon legislature for its approach to the methamphetamine epidemic starting in 2005. Instead of a knee-jerk “tough-on-crime” reaction, Oregon took another approach that turned out to be more effective. It chose to reduce the availability of substances used to manufacture meth and invest meaningful financial resources into drug treatment and drug courts.
The FBI figures are proof that this approach is working and that funding for prevention, treatment, and specialized response should be continued. Of course, there are still some who believe any non-violent drug-related offense should come with a prison term – but that’s an expensive and ineffective way to treat addiction-driven crime. We’ve seen that Oregon can reduce crime more effectively and less expensively when we invest in a treatment and prevention approach, rather than sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into building new prisons and depleting our resources for treatment and prevention.
Remember last fall when Kevin Mannix tried to scare everyone into believing that property crime was skyrocketing and we needed more mandatory minimum sentences to deal with it? Luckily, smart thinking prevailed and Measure 61 failed at the polls. Crime is on the decline in Oregon – meaning fewer crime victims and safer communities. We can and will work hard to make sure that Oregon keeps taking the “smart on crime” approach. It’s obviously working!
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of Justice Matters.
