Committee will hear prison reform bill | Statesman Journal | statesmanjournal.com
John Gear
Committee will hear prison reform bill
Most major reform legislation requires dozens of bills that go before multiple committees and eventually get pieced together in a series of compromises among lawmakers. But the criminal justice reforms proposed in the legislature this year probably will see a more streamlined process. All the proposals have been lumped into two bills that will go before one committee.
The reforms came out of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Commission on Public Safety, which he asked to find ways to slow the growth of Oregon’s prison system and save $600 million during the next 10 years.
The commission’s official recommendations were turned into House Bill 3194, and the alternative commission report written by Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote was turned into House Bill 3195.
The former will have its first hearing this evening before the Joint Committee on Public Safety.
The bills have much in common, but the biggest difference is sentencing policy, which probably will be the most stubborn sticking point on the evenly split committee. HB 3194 includes changes that would remove certain felonies from Measure 11, which carries mandatory minimum sentences for most violent crimes.
HB3194 would eliminate those minimums for anyone convicted of first degree sex abuse, second degree assault and second degree robbery. It also would eliminate the requirement to try as adults teenagers who have been convicted of those crimes.
HB3195 doesn’t include those changes because Foote, and most of Oregon’s district attorneys, don’t support changes to Measure 11, which they say has worked well since it went into effect in 1995.
HB 3194 also includes changes to the law that would make it easier for offenders to access alternative sentencing programs , as long as a judge decides they’re a good fit for the program. The other bill doesn’t include these provisions, but it does include a change that allows for more reductions in the time a person must be on probation if they’re doing well. That’s included in both bills.
Both bills also would create a grant program for community corrections programs that need money for more services. The overall push for both packages is to put more money into the local level and help prevent people from going to prison at all, or from returning if they’ve been.
HB 3194, which reflects the commission’s recommendations, relies on a combination of reductions in mandatory sentencing and more local funding to do this, while HB 3195, which relies on Foote’s proposal, relies on more local funding and cost reductions at the state level to achieve the same goal.
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