Governor Kitzhaber has an excellent idea for Oregon: Flatline the prison population.
The big idea got kind of lost in the discussion over the governor’s budget last week, but it could be a good move for Oregon if the legislature actually signs off on it this spring.
Here are the basics: Oregon’s prison population, along with the rest of the country‘s, has been spiraling upwards for 30 years. Recently, we’ve been adding about 150 inmates a year… which doesn’t sound like much, until you learn that each inmate costs the state about $85 each day. That’s not even factoring in the economic costs of families losing a wage earner and those Oregonians being less employable when they get out of prison.
Keeping the prison population steady will save $17.8 million next year, according to the state. What’s really good about Kitzahber’s budget, though, is it doesn’t just cut the money saved by flatlining prisons, but increases the corrections budget 10 percent and promises to invest the savings plus the new money in programs that will keep more Oregonians out of prison long-term. Those are programs like drug court, which sentences people to treatment instead of just jail time, and community corrections, which keeps offenders under supervision in the outside world rather than behind bars.
Let’s hope the details of this plan—due next month—are as good as they could be. In the meantime, read my full story on the topic here.
The spiraling increase of prison population is the direct result of the War on Drugs, this undeniable truth is not mention in either article. When Regan brought his war on Personal Freedom into full swing 30 years ago, this is the end result, the same result of any war*: swelling of government expenses, impoverishing of the population, and the loss of liberties for everyone. This will continue to be the result until something is done about our silly ass policy of locking people in cages over personal choices. The number 1 reason people are in cages or under State Supervision in Oregon and in the United States is because of drug offenses.
I wonder how prison rates and our state budget would have been if Kitzhaber supported Measure 80. His support alone might have kicked the measure over the top. Or, if Kitzhaber put an imperative on the Oregon Congress to do something about drug reform…but that’s obviously not going to happen no matter how many editorials are written. Measure 11 and Measure 57 were also horrible decisions by the people, and something has to be done about those as well.
This is a band-aid on the titanic so that Captain Kitzhaber can claim everything is fine, or at least that things are “getting better.” This “Flatline” policy is yet another example of the unwillingness of politicos to make tough choices and address the cause of the problem, instead we look at the byproduct. We will degrade the quality of all of our social welfare programs in order to maintain a failed policy that enriches a small section of our society. As an example of this: the same pool of money that funds schools also funds prisons, in fact, not that long ago Oregon was one of the few states spending more on prisons than higher education.
If you’re a smart person you should take this as a wakeup call: stop listening to the Captain Kitzhaber: lower a life boat, and paddle away as soon as possible. The Captain doesn’t have your best interest in mind at all. Get away from the American Dollar, and the government welfare systems, and learn self-sufficiency, because this is all going to collapse. This is the inevitable direction we are going, and there’s absolutely no way that we can fix these problems and turn around our economy. The ship is going to sink. It’s done, it’s over, it’s just a matter of time before the Captain jumps off himself.
*ask James Madison