Right On Crime: Oregon

Oregon is spending more and more on prison beds instead of local alternatives that make us safer and cost less.

If policymakers fail to act, Oregon taxpayers will be on the hook for $600 million more over the next decade to build more prisons to house an influx of mostly nonviolent offenders.

As more of the public safety budget gets spent on costly prison beds, our local crime-fighting resources and services for victims are getting squeezed out.

States can have less crime without more prisons. New York, for example, achieved the same crime decline as Oregon over the past 15 years, while sparing taxpayers the cost of more incarceration.

In fact, over the last five years 26 states reduced both their crime and imprisonment rate, Oregon was not one of them.

Oregon needs comprehensive sentencing reform that focuses prison resources on serious, violent criminals and puts dollars into the programs that are proven to prevent crime before it happens.