Clearly the threat and punishment provided to criminals by the Measure 11 Three Strikes Law has to be considered as a reason for the plummeting crime rate.

I’d also submit it must have something to do with sentencing by judges who understand that the number one role of government is the security of the citizens.

Now that we have crime on the decline let’s not screw it up. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

I believe that the drug treatment portion of M. 57 should be implemented whenever the money is there to do so.

But what is Kevin Mannix going to do now that the crime rate is coming down?

Carla, I don't follow your math. 97% +53%+23%+17%=190% Economist

M57 was presented to the public by the legislature in response to Kevin Mannix's more stringent property crimes Measure. Many voted for 57 because it had the mandatory substance abuse treatment clause in it. I would be in favor of keeping that portion and delying the rest.

If Meth manufacturing and use is down that is excellent. Based on arrest reports along I-5 in southern Oregon, however, the Mexican cabals are still cooking up a storm elsewhere and importing meth by the pound into and through our state.

1) What three strikes law? The only 3 strikes law I know about applies to felony sex offenses.

2) These treatment arguments don't take into account that the legislature gutted probation violation penalties from 180 days to 60 days starting Feb 2010. Therefore there is even less incentive for people to do treatment. On the front end most drug and property crime felonies only carry 10-30 day jail sentences, so there is no incentive there either.

3) Clearly the evidence of locking up violent criminals (under M11) speaks for itself.

Poor, misunderstood income redistributionists sitting there rotting in jail when they could be out stimulating insurance claims and replacement goods businesses, while providing evidence of the need for urban renewal.

For shame.

Carla said: The "evidence" of locking up criminals under M11 isn't speaking anything. Crime rates are down and incarceration rates are not.

Jel-N says: The logical conclusion is that the people who are staying locked up for M11 crimes are probably the ones who would have committed other crimes. Therefore offering up one reason why crime is down but incarcerations steady.

Hey, were you one of those people that thought Oregon was a 3 strikes state? In Oregon it is not uncommon for a person to get probation on their 6th felony.

If punishment is a deterrent to crime then it would appear that reporting on the Banksters and majoyrmerchants of fraud would similarly be affected.

With so many highly articulate advocates that punishment is a deterrent why were 1200 people sent to jail during the savings and loan thefts carried out under Ronny and George the First and none are being pursued today?

We know that stealing the goose from the commons is a hanging offence. Stealing the commons from the people is not punishable. Welcome to the new feudalism.

So, all of you law and order folks like Bucky Res get on it and support the prosecution of the super criminals that made up the GW Bush crime family. They have stolen billions. Not too late to have Obama man up.

Shorter yet: My two points of data are longitudinally next to one another, so where's the trend? Genius.

“Clearly the threat and punishment provided to criminals by the Measure 11 Three Strikes Law has to be considered as a reason for the plummeting crime rate.”

Based on what evidence, please?

I draw my conclusions based on the “evidence” you present in your little screed. Measure 11 was enacted a few years ago and we are now seeing the fruits of that labor with the corresponding drop in crime rates.

Keep up the good work promoting tough-on-crime measures CA, you are earning every penny they pay you at BO.

"Measure 11 was enacted a few years ago " ?

It was my memory that Ted Kulongoski was AG around the time it was enacted. Hardly "a few years ago".

There's no real debate that M11 has reduced serious violent crime. The debate is over whether it does so in a cost effective way. About 2/3 of Oregon voters think it does. Move on.

Regarding M57, 61% of the voters supported it. When you can convince 51% of the voters it was the wrong thing to do, I'll pay more attention. Until then, it does not behoove us to be the soft of crime party, especially when it's contrary to the wishes of the majority of voters. They clearly wanted a balanced approach - treatment first, then punishment if people don't get their act together. It's not an unreasonable approach.

Besides, fundamentally, crime and punishment is not all about science. I may agree with you that prison doesn't really help a meth addict, but, doggone it, when the guy is on his 10th PCS conviction, it's just time for him to go, or the system becomes a joke. Incarcerating murderers may not be the most effective way to prevent them from killing again, but it's sure popular.

Where is the discussion of the social costs here? Where is the discussion of the costs to the victims? These are not victimless crimes. Not only are their real people financially injured (usually poor themselves, in my experience), but the rest of us pay through increased interest rates, credit card fees, and feeling unsafe in our neighborhoods. If we become the "hug a thug" party, we'll lose, and we'll deserve to lose.

So, Carla, I see that you want to decrease incarceration for repeat felons, but where is your proposal to compensate their victims? Will the Legislature be fully funding restitution for all victims? Will the police show up with a checkbook to take care of the damages when someone reports a crime?

You may not realize it, but you're parroting what I hear from every lying, drug addled piece of dung I prosecute. "I'm the victim here!" "The system is unjust!" "I just need treatment." Yeah, yeah. I've had guys who have been kicked out of treatment a dozen times ordered to do treatment yet again. Don't be an apologist for that kind abdication of responsibility. The guys I cut breaks to are the ones who stand up and take responsibility. "I did it and I'm sorry," is not something I hear very often.

Carla, interestingly enough, I saw a speacial on Multnomah County Detention Center last night on the National Geographic Channel. They show was produced in 2008. In it, they stated that the MCDC was one of the busiest county jails in the nation and that its capacity of 700 inmates was over booked by about one-third.

The special also stated that fully 60% of the intake and incarcerations were due to substance abuse and addiction. Probably for the purposes of the show they highlighted one meth addict, one herion addict and one cocaine addict. I mention this in juxtoposition of the FBI crime rate statistics showing a decline for Oregon. Could it be that Multnomah county and Portland are not part of that general decline or was the National Geographic special dramatizing?

So, Carla, your proposal for victims is, "Let them fend for themselves?" Preventing future crime is only one of many considerations in the criminal justice system. Another is the appropriate punishment of people who commit crimes. That's what most of us call justice.

You've bought into the argument that people should simply not be held accountable for their actions because they're "sick" and that treatment is a "cure". In 11 years in the justice system, I would say that those folks are less than a quarter of who I see. There are a few truly evil people, about half that we'll never see again because they're just people who screwed up, and about a quarter who are people who just need to be locked up and for whom no amount of treatment will suffice.

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that you believe that they're all in that 20-25% where treatment will actually do some good. A good justice system preserves discretion in the decisionmakers so that they can give appropriate sentences for each offender. The fundamental problem with Oregon sentencing law is that it makes gross assumptions and lumps everyone into the same category. How about a system where judges (or, better yet, juries) have discretion to sentence within the full statutory range? Shouldn't we trust the people we elect to judicial positions? Unfortunately, the left has been unwilling to do so, because, however appropriate it might be to sentence a 10 time drug felon to 5 years in prison, it costs too much money in their view. And that, my dear friends, is why the M57 repeal (be honest, that's what it is) will simply play into Mannix's hands.

Thanks Carla, I'll check the link that you sent. I was kind of surprised to see the show. I'm not certain of the name because I was just channel surfing. I think it was "Lockup" where they highlight different approaches to incarceration and prison/jail time.

The very interesting highlight was that the staff at MCDC do not use weapons (other than Tasers as a last resort) or other overt forms of force. At intake it lloks more like a hospital admitting center than anything else. Of course they did show the isolation rooms for those who cause problems.

The book Freakanomics mentioned two (arguable, but made sense to me) reasons that crime has gone over the last 30 some odd years. Abortion and Long Prison Sentences. Abortion rights are key as unwanted children are statistically more likely to become criminals. Long prison sentences were also part of the equation since the criminals aren't in the community to do more crimes.

If people are in favor of what is working now, then M11 needs to stay intact and we need to maintain a firm line on a woman's right to choose.

The fundamental flaw in what Carla wrote is that she means "guvmint", not "gubmint".

Beyond that, we have Measure 57 on the ballot because Kevin Mannix is a one-trick pony: scaremongering about crime is the only thing he knows. It's the state-level version of Dubya screaming about terrorists. It also helps that Mannix is enabled by Steve Doell and Oregon Crime Victims United. Mr Doell, I know you suffered an awful tragedy when your daughter was killed, but kindly quit taking it out on the rest of us.

Carla - Here are some suggestions - 1. Eliminate mandatory minimums 2. Make the sentencing guidelines advisory 3. Make the law clear that judges may sentence a defendant anywhere within the statutory range 4. Provide the jury some role in sentencing, even if it is only an advisory opinion regarding incarceration to the judge 5. Increase judicial accountability by shortening terms in office to 4 years 6. Eliminate political appointment of judges and require special elections to fill judicial vacancies 7. Eliminate restrictions on judicial speach to allow judges to publicly comment on any case not currently before a trial court - this is essential to ensuring fair, competitive judicial elections 8. Provide DOC with funding for programs and clear guidance about who should get those programs - fail treatment, and future treatments are on your own dime 9. Defendants should get one shot only at felony probation - require them to prove their eligibility if they want probation in the future 10. Give DOC, at most, 50% of the time in custody to work with alternatives, programs, good time, and earned time. No more "out in 1/3" sentences. 11. Fully fund re-entry programs 12. Require imposition of the balance of the sentence if parolees commit a new felony on parole/PPS 13. Build more minimum security prisons in the Portland area. They're more effective in reintroducing prisoners and preventing recidivism and cheaper. 14. Require DOC funding adequate to ensure that prisoners serve the judicially imposed sentences.
15. No rehab programs for anyone who does not admit the crime, stipulate that drug or alcohol condition contributed to the problem, apologize to the victim, and agree to pay restitution. Suspend participation in programs for anyone who is not paying ordered restitution.

"A good justice system preserves discretion in the decisionmakers so that they can give appropriate sentences for each offender."

So, isn't this exactly what M11 (and M60 and M57 too) do NOT do? I'm confused. You are arguing in favor of mandatory minimums aren't you mlw? In rereading your comments, you don't specifically say; but Carla's calling for the repeal of M57, and you're saying she's soft on crime, so that's the gist I get anyway.

Bartender - yes, but the sentencing guidelines set artificially low maximum imprisonment. If drug possession is a C felony punishable by up to 5 years, why is the guidelines maximum 6 months? The Measure 11 sentences are effectively the maximums for most offenders, too. How dumb is that?

If you want to eliminate mandatory minimums, you have to eliminate mandatory caps (other than those statutorily prescribed) if you really want cases to be judged on their facts.

Yes, but I speak only for myself.

I forgot one. MAKE THEM GET JOBS! Having a job has got to be the number 1 reason people stop committing crimes. When I ask POs why they don't enforce the work requirement, they simply shrug and say that the courts don't enforce it. People say that they can't get work, but when I ask them if they've bothered to show up at LaborReady or any other temp agency for their casual employee calls every morning, I either get a blank look or, "Man, they want me to show up at 7:30!" Frankly, I'd be inclined to give a guy a pretty big break if he would just get a job and keep it.

Thanks for clearing that up MLW. Why is there such a disconnect between sentencing guidelines and the statutory sentencing ranges? Is it a funding issue? Who sets the guidelines?

Sorry if this has been covered before. I must have missed it if it was. Thanks for the info.

No problem, Bartender. The guidelines were passed in response to a "truth in sentencing" movement and to control DOC prisoner population. It was a strange move - one that did make sentences more consistent, but created such low sentencing ranges that the voters almost immediately passed M11 to prevent violent felons from getting disproportionately low sentences. There are lots of ways to do discretion in the criminal justice system. The current system really makes a hash of it. People elect judges to make individualized sentencing decisions based on the offender and DOC should be empowered, up to a point (50% is my vote), to decide who is reformed/been punished enough. The current system doesn't really do either. Judges are severely constrained on the top and bottom of sentences and DOC makes its decisions almost entirely on population rather than making much of an individualized determination. It's a really dumb system and no one likes it, but there's almost no political will to change it.

Thank you for explaining that so succinctly MLW. It does sound like a screwy system. Certainly much more complex and nuanced than I imagined. You make a good argument for restructuring the whole thing, and I agree with others that most (if not all - I don't feel knowledgeable enough about it all to say for sure) of your suggestions seem to make a lot of sense.

MLW,

<h2>I like your recommendations as well. However, I don't think politicans will overturn Measure 11, so the only way to eliminate them would be to repeal it would be by ballot measure. Personally I think if it does get on the ballot, it will end up in a very nasty fight (I don't need to say why either). While I very much hope it happens, I think it's a long shot.</h2>