Oregon Spends More on Prisons Than Education

Most of the time, it is good to lead and be first in something, but when I heard the Pew Center on the States report that says that Oregon is #1 out of the 50 states in the USA in spending the largest amount of the state's budget on prisons, I can't begin to express the anger I felt. We are spending more to incarcerate people than to educate them. We are closing elementary schools and opening new prisons. That is truly embarrassing. What is even worse is that for the first time in the history of the US, about 1% of our total population is incarcerated. That is mind-boggling.

Proponents like Kevin Mannix maintain that we must continue to be tough on crime. They say that measure 11, which was passed in 1994 and is our state version of "mandatory minimums", has helped make Oregon a safer place to live. That sounds good, but data released by The Disaster Center shows that both violent and property crimes are down, not only in Oregon but across most of the US and if we look deeper we see that this holds true in states without mandatory minimums who are spending a lot less on crime. Remember what Albert Einstein said about insanity? He said it was "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If the state of Oregon continues to funnel billions of dollars into incarceration, at best we are being short sighted. Or we are insane by definition?

Oregon.gov reports that as of October 2007, there were 13,405 inmates in Oregon prisons. Most had mental health or substance abuse problems, both of which are medical conditions and should be treated, but prisons are in the business of punishment, not rehabilitation.

Mannix wants to be tough on crime and send a message to potential criminals, but who pays for that resolution? What bothers me the most is that we all pay for it since it creates a perpetual "revolving door" as are so few options for people to re-assimilate back into society and they are in fact basically dumped onto the street and most become homeless. It's tough to find a job when your address is a park bench, so desperation breeds more crime and the cycle continues.

Historically, we are at a significant place and what we do about crime and even more importantly about education and rehabilitation programs will define our future. If we think of those numbers and dollars as the lives they symbolize, we can't afford to make any more mistakes.

Sources:
Pew Center on the States, Grading the States

The Disaster Center, US Crime Statistics Uniform Crime Report 2006, The Rothstein Cataloge on Disaster Recovery

Oregon Department of Corrections, Issue Brief Quick Facts, Oregon.gov