Alert: Media Coverage about Corrections Spending Heats Up

Press coverage about Oregon’s out of control corrections spending has heated up greatly in the past few days. We want to keep you in the loop by alerting you to several important pieces of media coverage.

On Friday morning, May 22, PSJ’s David Rogers was a guest on OPB’s Think Out Loud radio program, the topic of which was “Sentencing and Spending.” You can listen to the audio of that program and/or post comments by clicking here. As a follow-up, co-host Emily Harris posted questions for David about the polling that PSJ has conducted which indicated that Oregonians support delaying the implementation of Measure 57. Her questions and David’s answers are posted on OPB’s Think Out Loud website here.

Also on Friday, an Oregonian editorial headline succinctly stated our predicament: “Oregon’s in a box on prison spending.” They ask: Release inmates early from prison, or delay Measure 57? And reply: Facing $100 million in public safety cuts, the best answer is both. The Oregonian rightly points out that Oregon’s corrections policies are unsustainable over the long term. “Oregon puts more people in prison, and keeps them there longer, than it can afford,” they conclude.

Sunday’s Oregonian featured a guest opinion by Chuck Sheketoff, executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, who said that in the face of severe budget cuts, “Let’s suspend Measure 57.” He begins bluntly: “Oregon’s day of reckoning is at hand.” His thoughtful and well-written piece points out that the “silver lining to this severe economic downturn and revenue shortfall is that it’s highlighted our out-of-balance priorities, in which the relentless growth of prison spending suffocates pressing needs of the vulnerable and our communities. The first step in correcting that imbalance is suspending Measure 57.”

Finally, today’s Oregonian front page headline reads: “Budget crisis could curtail Oregon's prison boom” and can be read here. Reporter Susan Goldsmith lays out the facts beautifully, including a discussion of how Texas reduced prison spending by increasing alternatives to incarceration with stunning results. She says that in Oregon, however, “voters handcuffed the Legislature in 1994 with Measure 11.” The article includes PSJ’s David Rogers saying legislators should look at what other states have done to reduce prison costs. “States all over the country have woken up and found they are dumping way too much money into incarceration, and it’s the most expensive and least effective way of maintaining public safety.”