PETER WONG
Statesman Journal
December 14, 2001
Corrections workers and citizens expressed concern
Thursday about a worst-case scenario that would close six prisons,
including three in Salem, while moving forward with new prison
construction elsewhere in the state.
They offered their perspectives to a House committee gathering information
on budget alternatives.
Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees represents workers at state prisons other than Oregon State
Penitentiary, Oregon State Correctional Institution and a couple of
others. The Oregon Criminal Justice Reform Coalition represents several
groups often critical of prisons.
But they are united in their opposition to closing up to six
minimum-custody prisons and camps, which the department says is a
last-resort proposal.
The top three on the list are the Oregon Women’s Correctional Center
(176 beds), which will be converted next year to a men’s prison; Mill
Creek Correctional Facility (310 beds); and Santiam (390 beds). All are in
Salem.
The groups also are worried about potential cuts in training and treatment
programs.
Mike White, a physical plant worker at Santiam Correctional Institution in
Salem, said those programs improve an inmate’s chances of holding a job
and making the transition back into society.
“If we dump those people out without getting them into programs while
they are within the system — if we do not continue those programs — we
are creating major problems for those people and the public down the
road,” White said.
Corrections Director Dave Cook has said such cuts would lead to his agency
warehousing inmates, “which historically has proven unwise.”
But Tina Turner-Morfitt, a counselor at the Oregon Corrections Intake
Center in Oregon City, said warehousing will be the result if Gov. John
Kitzhaber adopts a department proposal to close up to six minimum-custody
prisons and camps.
“I can assure you that if we close those prisons, the majority of them
(inmates) will not make it,” she said.
Kitzhaber will announce his budget-cutting proposals in early January, and
Cook said, “We clearly do not want to reach this level of reduction.”
Departments were asked to submit reductions of as much as 10 percent from
their tax-supported general fund budgets.
On the other hand, the department plans to move ahead with prison
construction, although the new sites in Madras and Lakeview are scheduled
to open after the 2001-03 budget.
Brigette Sarabi, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Criminal Justice Reform
Coalition, said the state could save $15 million in debt payments by
delaying new construction.
“We think it makes no sense to close some minimum-security prisons while
we push ahead full speed with new construction,” said Sarabi, who is
director of the Western Prison Project.
Sarabi also said the state should consider early release of nonviolent
offenders, particularly if they have behaved and would qualify otherwise
for earned-time reductions. But it would require a change in a law that
requires inmates to serve their full prison terms, with exceptions.
Cook said before any of the six targeted prisons or camps could close, the
Legislature would have to give him authority to release inmates early —
two years for some statute and property offenders and 18 months for some
convicted of person-to-person crimes. Violent offenders convicted under
1994’s Measure 11 would not be eligible.
Peter Wong can be reached
at (503) 399-6745.