Many prison reform activists wonder if Oregon lawmakers care more about preserving jobs than saving lives in the state’s correctional facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.
They can stop wondering, said Jodi Hansen, the founder and executive director of the prison reform organization Remnants Initiative. State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D- Scappoose) revealed the truth during last week’s special legislative session, Hansen told Street Roots.
Johnson told her colleagues Aug. 10 that protecting jobs provided a “humanitarian reason” to keep prisons opened during the pandemic.
“I was particularly taken aback by Johnson’s comment that they didn’t want to close the prisons because they didn’t want to lose jobs,” Hansen said. “Is the purpose of the prison system to keep the public safe? Or is to provide jobs?”
Gov. Kate Brown asked the Legislature to close the state’s minimum-security prisons in North Bend and Lakeview to protect inmates from COVID-19. Lawmakers never had the chance to vote on the recommendation.
The Legislature’s Democratic leaders refused to send the recommendation to the House and Senate floors.
“The decision was made at the leadership level, but my assumption is that no one wanted to vote to kill hundreds of jobs — especially going into an election season,” Rep. Ron Noble (R-McMinnville) told Street Roots.
Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview incarcerates approximately 475 people with a staff of 100. Lake County has had 32 confirmed cases of COVD-19 and no deaths. None of those cases, as of Aug. 14, came from the prison.
In contrast, according to state records, Shutter Creek Correctional Institution in North Bend as of June represented 70% of the known COVID-19 cases in Oregon’s correctional system — with 25 of its approximately 200 inmates testing positive for the virus.
State records also report that two of the approximately 100 people who work at the facility tested positive. Coos County in general has 91 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no deaths.
Because the two prisons are minimum-security facilities, most of the inmates are set to be released in the next four years.
“Legislative leadership assessed that the risks of transferring large groups of adults in custody from remote areas during an ongoing pandemic put those individuals at greater risk for harm,” said Danny Moran, the communications director for House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland), in a statement emailed to Street Roots.
“The Department of Corrections will be conducting an analysis to realign the state prison population with system facilities and reduce the number of prisons based on what’s best for adults in custody,” Moran added. The plan is scheduled to be presented to lawmakers next year.
The governor expressed disappointment with lawmakers in a press conference Aug. 11, following the one-day special session on Aug. 10.
“I think, and the evidence shows, we could be much smarter in our approach to tackling crime,” Brown said in her public remarks. “For the first time in many years, Oregon prison projections are down. We can safely close prisons, keep our communities safe and reduce taxpayer expenses.”
Moran, in his statement, said Kotek agrees in principle. “Speaker Kotek believes we need a smarter and smaller prison system that incorporates best practices for adults in custody,” he said.
Shannon Wright, a prison reform activist and deputy director at Partnership for Safety in Justice, applauded Brown’s attempt to close the prisons.
“Prisons are a central part of the inherently racist criminal justice system that the Black Lives Matter movement and the many Oregonians are increasingly critical of,” she said in a statement. “We can have a more equitable system that centers the needs of people who have systemically been denied true public safety.”
Brown may still have executive authority to close prisons.
“Before making any decisions surrounding this issue, the governor would need to review information and recommendations from the Department of Corrections,” Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, told Street Roots.
Wright’s Portland-based nonprofit advocates following California and Washington in reducing prison populations in the face of the pandemic.
“By doing so, we can decrease COVID exposure and free up taxpayer dollars for better investments in local communities, including economic development that doesn’t rely on prisons,” she said in her statement.
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Bernadette Rabuy, the senior policy analyst for the Prison Policy Initiative in Northampton, Mass., said Oregon and other states should seize this moment in history.
“Communities nationwide have taken to the streets, calling for defunding the police and investing in social services, but the Oregon Legislature failed to heed this call by refusing to close two prisons, further binding itself to mass incarceration rather than protecting the services and systems that have been proven to address the root causes of crime,” Rabuy told Street Roots.
Hansen, whose Newberg-based Remnants Initiative helps people make the transition from prison to the mainstream community, told Street Roots the Legislature made Oregon’s philosophy clear.
“We’re going to create jobs by punishing people and do it on the public dime,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to address poverty and drug addiction?”
Email Reporter Tom Henderson at thenderson@streetroots.org