NPR has a story this morning re: California prison problems and the effect of mandatory minimum laws passed in the 1990s. Worth listening to. One part I found very strange - per the NPR report, in CA the prison employee unions are major financial backers of "Crime Victims United" and have sponsored and supported various get tough on crime ballot measures, apparently to increase the number of jobs available for prison guards. A strange moment in history to have Grover Norquist on the side of reducing prison populations and a public employee union on the side of increasing prison populations. Very odd.

Kari I diagree strongly with your characterization of people who favor mandatory minimums as right wing folks in the mold of Sizemore ect. Almost every if not all elected Democratic DAs favor Measure 11 as does the majority of the blue state of Oregon. It is interesting that you failed to have a major post about the legislature's betrayal of the voters on HB 3508 which was in my view the most significant event of the legislature.In a spirit of spite the leg tolled M57 by date of sentencing not date of offense (thereby jamming the courts up and encouraging delays and failures to appear so criminals can get a shorter sentence.)

Do you understand that without M11 or the property crime minimum that Oregon judges would not suddenly have discretion; they would be bound by a sentencing guideline scheme that has mandatory maximums (for example 10-30 days in jail for a person who comitts ID Theft even if they have a prior)

I thought progressives fought to help the most vulnerable members of society; those tend to be crime victims. The real heroes are the ones who protect the vulnerable.

Why is this hack even testifying? No wonder Congress is held in such low regard.

It's worth noting that without egregiously bad decisions both at sentencing and by parole boards made back when "doing time" was arbitrary, there'd never have been any traction for mandatory minimums.

Between racial disparities for like crimes, wrist slaps for the wealthy and connected, revolving door justice for "charismatic" offenders, and the oddly soft headed judge or parole board, it is unsurprising that politicians at all levels, and/or the people directly, turned to hammering criminals by removing lots of previously misused discretion from the justice system.

It is further unsurprising that the prison guard unions seized upon controlling the spigot by funding crime victim groups and otherwise organizing their constituency.

The best reform remains draining the profits out of the illicit drug trade and releasing its non-violent employees and financial officers.

Ending the Drug War is what Grover Norquist is really voicing in his stance.

As a final note, if anyone has the right to be a "lock 'em up" crazy in Oregon, that person is Steve Doell, or anyone like him, who has lost a loved one to the senseless violence that was largely unheard of just a couple of generations ago.

An excellent question Carla. The prevailing contratemps of punishment versus redemption. Are some crimes so heinous that there is no choice at redeeming the individual? Or, are all crimes worthy of personal reflection and a chance at re-entry to society?

The mandatory minimums most likely did come about due to headline cases of judicial/prosecutorial leniency. The 'lock-em up' crows seized upon thes cases and made the push for mandatory miinimums. I agree w/boats that ending the War on Drugs would go a long way to clearing out our prison populations while at the same time taking the criminal element out of marijuana production, distribution and sales.

Kari in response to your question of a mandatory maximum it is like this: the criminal code says that for Burglary in the Second Degree the most one can receive is 5 years prison, however under Oregon's sentencing guideline scheme it is legally impossible to get five years in prison.

The maximum sentence a judge can impose without a jury deciding aggravating factors (why this burglary is worse than a similar one) is 10 to 30 days in the local jail. If one aggravating factor is found by a jury the maximum is 6 mos, if two (very rare) it is 12 mos- not prison but local jail. thus the judge has a maximum of 20% that of what the law actually says. That is what I mean by mandatory maximumms- they mandate a judge stop at far less than the law says. If you wanted to get rid of the gudielines AND mandatory sentencing, I think many in law enforcement would support that.

"Do you understand that without M11 or the property crime minimum that Oregon judges would not suddenly have discretion; they would be bound by a sentencing guideline scheme that has mandatory maximums (for example 10-30 days in jail for a person who comitts ID Theft even if they have a prior) "

This is inaccurate. Outside of the repeat property offender laws, the presumed sentence for property crimes is tied to the value of the property stolen. Also, the LOWEST presumed sentence is 30 to 90 days (for theft of less than $1000 in property; your example of ID theft is what would be given to someone who possessed someone else's ID and never used it, or used it to buy something small. Someone who stole more would get maybe one year in jail) There is NO presumed 10 to 30 day sentence under the guidelines.

The biggest problem with sentencing guidelines is that the harshness of the sentence is determined by considering much worse behavior than the elements of the crime. "Identity theft", for example, is sentenced as though the offender is the thief who obtains birthdates and social security numbers and causes everyone's nightmare of having thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges in theit name...but that's not how the crime is defined. A 22 year old white woman can be and is convicted of "Identity theft" for simply having in her pocket a picture ID of someone who looks like Bill Cosby, without ever once trying to pass herself off as anyone else. The law doesn't say she has to. People are convicted of sexual abuse of minors without ever encountering a minor, simply because of pictures on their computers. People are convicted of "delivering controlled substances to a minor" (which has a sentence appropriate for the scumbucket who sells dope to kids), simply for sharing a bong hit of marijuana with a stranger at a party, no matter that the mature looking 17 year old has been doing bong hits for three years and that no money ever changed hands. And the list is endless.

Judges need to be independent. They need to be free to consider individual circumstances and decide whether the facts fit the reasons for a given sentence being what it is.

Per NPR's report this morning: California, which pioneered the mandatory minimums and 3 strikes measures has a prison recidivism rate of over 75%. The increase in prison population required more money for basics, like food, water, and security. The basics use money that previously went to education and training of inmates. The prisons in California are collapsing under the weight of mandatory minimums and recidivism has gone from 55% to over 75% without the training and work programs in place.

What is needed is a huge rethink in the whole approach, starting with the idea that you build a system out of independent actors (cops, prosecutors, judges, appellate courts) who have essentially zero accountability for their actions and who have no responsibility to make judicious use of resources.

We need to have good data on every actor in the system, the kind of data that would allow us to evaluate effective and ineffective participants, i.e., the ones that use the resources available for the most benefit.

Prosecutors are allowed to assume essentially infinite supply of prison beds and to terrorize defendants with charge sheets that coerce plea bargains; judges are not allowed discretion to recognize the bursting at the seams system, an implicit requirement to act as if there was infinite supply of prison beds. Nobody in the system is evaluated for effectiveness in terms of fixing offenders. Rather, we've got a hash house with exactly one item on the menu and, when that item proves not to be effective (when we have recidivism) our response is to shout "OH YEAH, then how about we give you 10 times as much of it," destroying any hopes for maintaining family connections and condemning yet another generation to fulfill their role in the system.

We need to develop ways to not just allocate prison beds but also to measure the effectiveness of sentencing AND CHARGING and tie consequences for those strategies to the actors who employ them. We need to develop a full range of menu items for our corrections restaurant and start treating prisons as the high-cost, low-utility places that they are.

This piece, by coincidence, published today, is an example of trying to be smart rather than bullheaded on our approach to dealing with crime. We need more like this.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/crime_control_/2009/07/less_punishment_less_crime.php

George et al, I won't pretend to know all the answers nor all the specifics of Oregon’s DOC, but Carla at least asked an honest question. Claiming that there is "zero accountability" is either incredibly disingenuous or deliberately obtuse – especially if you’re talking about Oregon’s Department of Corrections. The notion that recidivism is a reasonable indicator of whether the criminal justice system does its job is good one… a view that is shared by the PEW Center on the States in their excellent executive summary Ten Steps Corrections Directors Can Take to Strengthen Performance. The very first step is to Get the Agency Mission Right: Reevaluated agency mission to include focus on reducing recidivism.

Moreover, a simple search at Oregon’s DOC site yields something the PEW Center praised, the Oregon Accountability Model (OAM). Both the new mission statement and the OAM include recidivism as a critical indicator. In fact, ODOC’s research indicates a drop in recidivism rates.

Over the past decade, the rate has dropped from near 40% to hovering around 30% at the three year mark after release. The PEW Center repeatedly praises Oregon for at least attempting to make the corrections system accountable to measurable indices.

While it is far from perfect and is still in desperate need of improvement, accountability isn’t simply in the hands of management. Oregon prisons reflect both the justice and compassion of its CITIZENS, us – not simply some convenient target within the system.

Like I’ve said before, I often don’t agree with the positions held by many on Blue Oregon, but I tend to appreciate the arguments. Labeling the opposition as "the typical right-wing coalition of social conservatives, anti-tax advocates, and lock-em-up advocates” is simple laziness. This really is a blue state, and considering that, the passage of mandatory minimums doesn’t mean it was “typical right-wing” enemies – it means the blue people failed miserably to convince their own constituency. I’m a center right independent who was four-square against measure 11, 57, etc. – and I failed to convince some of my neighbors, neighbors who are much farther left than I happen to be… Oregon’s voters are not sheep. Give them arguments they can believe in and you can persuade them.

Accountability? We live in a liberal democracy, and WE are the ones accountable for continued failures in any system.

All in all, it was a great article Kari – I hope many of our crimes get a second look at an appropriate sentence AND that judges get the requisite latitude needed to make sound sentencing decisions. There are too many drug and alcohol related offenses that have no business in Oregon prisons.

Best regards to you all at Blue Oregon.

George et al, I won't pretend to know all the answers nor all the specifics of Oregon’s DOC, but Carla at least asked an honest question. Claiming that there is "zero accountability" is either incredibly disingenuous or deliberately obtuse – especially if you’re talking about Oregon’s Department of Corrections. The notion that recidivism is a reasonable indicator of whether the criminal justice system does its job is good one… a view that is shared by the PEW Center on the States in their excellent executive summary Ten Steps Corrections Directors Can Take to Strengthen Performance. The very first step is to Get the Agency Mission Right: Reevaluated agency mission to include focus on reducing recidivism.

Moreover, a simple search at Oregon’s DOC site yields something the PEW Center praised, the Oregon Accountability Model (OAM). Both the new mission statement and the OAM include recidivism as a critical indicator. In fact, ODOC’s research indicates a drop in recidivism rates.

Over the past decade, the rate has dropped from near 40% to hovering around 30% at the three year mark after release. The PEW Center repeatedly praises Oregon for at least attempting to make the corrections system accountable to measurable indices.

While it is far from perfect and is still in desperate need of improvement, accountability isn’t simply in the hands of management. Oregon prisons reflect both the justice and compassion of its CITIZENS, us – not simply some convenient target within the system.

Like I’ve said before, I often don’t agree with the positions held by many on Blue Oregon, but I tend to appreciate the arguments. Labeling the opposition as "the typical right-wing coalition of social conservatives, anti-tax advocates, and lock-em-up advocates” is simple laziness. This really is a blue state, and considering that, the passage of mandatory minimums doesn’t mean it was “typical right-wing” enemies – it means the blue people failed miserably to convince their own constituency. I’m a center right independent who was four-square against measure 11, 57, etc. – and I failed to convince some of my neighbors, neighbors who are much farther left than I happen to be… Oregon’s voters are not sheep. Give them arguments they can believe in and you can persuade them.

Accountability? We live in a liberal democracy, and WE are the ones accountable for continued failures in any system.

All in all, it was a great article Kari – I hope many of our crimes get a second look at an appropriate sentence AND that judges get the requisite latitude needed to make sound sentencing decisions. There are too many drug and alcohol related offenses that have no business in Oregon prisons.

Best regards to you all at Blue Oregon.

What am I doing wrong here?

Geez, sorry about the double post.

Anyhoo. I also wrote a post addressing recidivism. Drop on by sometime.

Measure 11 has caused a huge economic problem for Oregon and is just plain bad policy. Our judges need to have their discretion back! There is research that it is more expensive and the least effective means of dealing with public safety. We forget that the vast majority will one day be back on the street....so wouldn't it make more sense to educate, train and treat people???? It would save a lot of money in the long run while making our community a safer place to live!!!

There is literally a world of knowledge and research out there that says you can't just lock people up for long periods of time and for everything; it just doesn't work. What is the point of our criminal justice system? Is it strictly punitive? Is it meant to reform and allow for redemption? What kind of people do we lock up, and what kind of people do we want to release when their sentence is done? Who is served by minimum mandatory sentences? What cost do we incur to the checks and balances of our system when discretion is taken from judges and jurors, and given to the prosecutors?

We know that minimum mandatory sentences are expensive for our budgets, and swallow large percentages of our general funding. It's time that we also look at the path of destruction it has left in ruined lives and fractured families.

Re: Alleged soft headed judges and parole boards, and sentencing guidelines

I'm old enough to recall the reason for the guidelines. And recalling the history also reveals the fiction of "soft headed judges and parole boards." (Though some judges are certainly softer than others)

Late 1970's early 1980's the State didn't have enough prison beds. The legislature wouldn't fund them out of general revenue and the voters rejected bonding or taxes to build them. So when these "soft headed judges" continued to sentence people to prison (5, 10 or 20 years), the "soft headed" parole board was forced to decide who to release, or face a civil rights lawsuit. (Which they would lose).

So the parole board came up with a matrix. Depending on a persons prior record and type of crime, and other factors that could predict recidivism, they would set a release date. Maybe for a burglary II people were being kicked out after 45 days. For an assault I, maybe four years.

Citizens (those same ones who voted the funding for more prisons down) were infuriated that these "soft headed judges" could sentence someone to 10 years and they'd be released in two. So the Legislature said...OK instead of that, we'll have truth in sentencing. If this person charged with this type of crime is released in 6 months under the parol matrix, Then we're going to sentence them to 6 months up front. Thats the guidelines. It was basically what the parole board was doing anyway.

Blowback...Now the citizens were really PO'd. Before the articles in the morning paper said some serial burglar got 20 years in prison and everyone was happy. THe people didn't know that that person got out in 48 months under the parole board matrix).

But With the truth in sentenceing guidlines the morning newspapars now reported that that burglar got a sentence of only 48 months.

J....C.....YOU'RE KIDDING ME?????? 48 MONTHS IS ALL???????? WHAT A BUNCH OF SOFT HEADED JUDGES!!!! WE NEED TO PASS SOME MORE LAWS!!!!

And in Salem some politicians acted as though they were shocked that this was happening. Like they had nothing to do with it.

The problem was, we should have been PO'd at the legislature and ourselves for not funding prison beds.

So in a way Grover Norquist is simply recognizing that we really need to get over this need and not do a spit take with our coffee in the morning when we read that some burglar got a 48 month sentence. And go back to the sentencing guidelines, with some tweaking, which do in fact take into account public safety and the cost of incarceration.

Don't forget, Kevin Mannix ran for Gov. on the slogan "soft on crime, no new taxes".

Norquist said, "The biggest problem from the perspective of the taxpayer, however, is that mandatory minimum sentencing policies have proven prohibitively expensive. In 2008, American taxpayers spent over $5.4 billion on federal prisons, a 925 percent increase since 1982. "

Perhaps it finally dawned on Norquist that "tough on crime" needed to be paid for, and some jurisdictions were turning to taxes to pay for that.

We will always lose on this issue until we start talking about the victims of crime and how to prevent there from being more of them, instead of how expensive it is to lock people up. Speaking as a devoted Democrat, it pains me to see how stupid the party is on this issue. Don't we see the obvious? PEOPLE THINK THAT LOCKING UP CRIMINALS IS MONEY WELL SPENT. The declining violent crime rates and studies of the cost to society of even non-violent property crime tend to support this position.

You want to eliminate mandatory miminums? Fine, but you have to eliminate the sentencing guidelines as well and allow judges (or, better yet, juries) to sentence criminals to anywhere in the statutory range and set limits on DOC's ability to release prisoners early. Until we're ready to accept that level of intellectual honesty in the system, it will only change on the margins.

mlw is correct when s/he states that people who want sentencing changes need to talk about preventing crime. Because I would hope thats what we're really talking about here.

Even though some folks will accuse anyone who would like outcome based sentencing of being soft on crime, I believe the debate is really about how to best spend the available dollars in the most efficient way that maxmizes pubic safety. Taking into account, on case by case basis, victims needs and expectations.

But I take excetpion with mlw in that you simply can't talk about crime prevention or reduction without talking about how the criminal justice system spends its money.

I don't hear many peopoe who would like to get rid of mandatory minimums say we should take any realized savings and give it away to some unrelated government program (Except Grover I guess who would like to cut taxes with the savings) I do hear that we should use the savings for non incarceration programs, Drug and alcohol treatment, and victim reparations.

So I agree that the debate here should be on what works for crime prevention (For a good discussion see Judge Michael Marcus' website at www.smartsentencing.com)and victim specific needs.

And some of you may be dissapointed that what works for some offendors may be even more jail or prison than recommended by the guidelines or any mandatory sentencing law. But if we are true to our end goal. Public safety, then thats fine.

I have read a lot from people who probably have never had to watch this system and kids. We have children, yes children, charged as adults. We ruine their lives before they even know who they are. We do this based on lies. I have watched a DA lie to a judge when the truth would have better served everyone and was told to be quiet. I have seen children who don't understand what is happening to them. They can be matipulated by the legal system when they don't understand the the long term consequences. We have a legal system that makes it reputation on the backs of children. Who protects them? Who protects the family that has to watch it from the sidelines? Who protects the siblings that has nothing to do with anything but won't be believed?

I will go back to being tough on crime when I see some honesty on the part of the system, it starts with not allow the police to lie, DA's having to tell the truth for all things and we stop labeling children for life for anything they do.

You want to eliminate mandatory miminums? Fine, but you have to eliminate the sentencing guidelines as well and allow judges (or, better yet, juries) to sentence criminals to anywhere in the statutory range and set limits on DOC's ability to release prisoners early. Until we're ready to accept that level of intellectual honesty in the system, it will only change on the margins.

Until we're going to have the intellectual honesty to say that each person and each case is unique and that judgments made three, five, ten or even twenty years before may have absolutely nothing to do with who is and isn't suitable for release and reintegration then, yes, we're not going to make progress.

I propose the following: that all criminal sentencing be conducted en masse each month, rather than seriatim and individually.

That is, each month, all the pleas and all the trial conviction cases will be forwarded to a sentencing jury made up of citizens who, with full knowledge of the capacity of the prisons, the projected occupancies, and the number of current open cases heading towards trial, arrives at sentences for ALL criminal cases at the same time -- might take a week each month. The prosecutors and the defense attorneys will be able to make arguments for their proposed sentences and the jury will have to fit all the sentences into the available space.

In other words, no more credit card spending without a limit on jailing people. The system will have a budget for incarceration and the sentences will have to fit within the budget. In such a system, the scary people who need to go away for a long time will, and the young and dumb are lots less likely to have their lives ruined by draconian sentencing rules; also, we will no longer have to use inflexible rules to ensure sentencing fairness. We'll do all the cases for like charges at the same time, starting with the homicides and working our way down to the public urinations, mopery, dopery etc.

I thought that measure 11 DID NOT include drug "crimes"

Was I misinformed?

Admiral you are the one who is wrong. While I agree that the guideline score is tied to loss, burglary-2 (being in a business with the intent to steal); ID Theft were one steals under $1000 are all what are called category-2 crimes under the guidelines. I am sure the lawyers with different views MLW and Robert Harris will agree with me.

These are not the only cat-2 crimes. Without the property crime minimum, outside of Burglary First Degree or Agg Theft-I (over $10,000) it would be IMPOSSIBLE to go to prison under the guidelines on a property crime unless one had at least one person felony on their record- and even then rare. Impossible. That is why the mandatory setnences are needed because the guidelines are weak.

Your ID theft example would be not raise to a beyond a reasonable doubt standard and would likely be thrown out by a judge before a judge could even here it. Case law as made clear there must be a financial motive. IF there was evidence that she was using or planning on using Mr. Cosby's ID to order stuff of the internet then she could AND SHOULD BE convicted of ID Theft.

Perhaps Admiral you should be demoted to Petty Officer?

Mr. Grover Norquist, I strongly believe that we need to abandon mandatory minimum here in Oregon. We are wasting so much money on this m-11 when we can put our money and efforts in our children's future. Like, build more schools than prisons. Make programs available for people that have an addiction. Locking them up and trowing away the key is not the answer. Also M-11 has been nothing less than a huge economic problem for Oregon. Wake up people and smell the coffee. Pretty soon we can just put a barbwire around our state and call it good.

[Off-topic comment removed. Use Google to find what you're looking for. -editor.]

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Grover is going soft, or getting reasonable...the only reason he supports eliminating mandatory minimum sentences?...because TAXES have to pay for more prisons.

<h2>Truth is, Grover would rather see people's homes burgularized, their orifices violated, their lives brutally ended, than see the commission of what to him is the greatest crime...taxation.</h2>