First-time offenders caught with small amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and other illegal drugs will face less jail time and smaller fines under a new bill approved by the Oregon legislature that aims to curb mass incarceration.
The Oregon legislature passed a bill late last week that reclassifies possession of several drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor, reducing the punishments and expanding access to drug treatment for people without prior felonies or convictions for drug possession. Oregon lawmakers hope to encourage drug users to seek help rather than filling up the state’s prisons as an epidemic of abuse spreads.
“We are tying to move policy toward treatment rather than prison beds,” said state Sen. Jackie Winters, R, co-chair of the public safety committee and a supporter of the bill. “We can’t continue on the path of building more prisons when often the underlying root cause of the crime is substance use.”
The bill also attempts to reduce racial profiling via data collection and analysis to help police departments understand when their policies or procedures result in disparities.
If signed into law, Oregon would be among just a few states that have reduced punishments for possession of small amounts of some illicit drugs, what some call the “decriminalization” of drug possession. Proponents say the bill marks a significant step toward addressing racial disparities in incarceration that developed as a result of the “war on drugs” approach to crime. The bill reflects a wider trend in which many states struggling to manage the opioid addiction crisis are working to treat drug abuse more as a public health concern than a criminal matter.
In Oregon, several law enforcement agencies worked with lawmakers to craft portions of the bill.
“Too often, individuals with addiction issues find their way to the doorstep of the criminal justice system when they are arrested for possession of a controlled substance,” Kevin Campbell, executive director of the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police, wrote in a letter of support for the bill. “Unfortunately, felony convictions in these cases also include unintended and collateral consequences including barriers to housing and employment and a disparate impact on minority communities.”
Despite garnering support from law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups, the majority of Republicans in both the House and Senate voted against the bill, as did some Democrats.
“I fully support the collection of data to monitor racial profiling, but I am opposed to reducing drug classification,” state Rep. Alan Olson, R, wrote in a recent newsletter to his constituents. His attitude toward the bill was shared among many in the legislature, including some Democrats.
State Sen. Betsy Johnson, D, who voted against the bill, argues that downgrading drug possession is misguided and represents a “hug-a-thug policy” in which legislatures are soft of crime in an effort to reform the prison system.
“The proponents of these bills mistakenly believe that drug sentences damage people lives, but it’s the drugs that ruin people’s lives,” she said. “I would like to end the odious practice of racial profiling, but I will not be associated with a bill that decriminalizes hard drugs.”
Studies have shown that Oregon conviction rates disproportionately affect minorities. A 2015 study by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission found that African-Americans in Oregon were convicted of felony drug possession at more than double the rate of white offenders; Native-Americans were convicted of drug possession at five times the rate of whites.
Oregon has the seventh-highest incarceration rate in state prisons for African-American males, according to a 2016 report by the Sentencing Project, a prison-reform advocacy group. Black people make up 2 percent of Oregon’s population but represent almost 10 percent of the people incarcerated in state prisons as of 2014, the study found.
With the bill’s passage, Aaron Knott, legislative director for Oregon’s Department of Justice, hopes to reverse these trends while also increasing access to drug treatment for all Oregonians. Many Oregon counties already have local drug diversion programs that allow some low-level drug offenders to undergo treatment instead of jail time, but the programs are generally in wealthier counties with more resources, leaving people in low-income communities without options, Knott said.
“So if you crossed the county line with a small amount of heroin, in one county you could be looking at a felony. In another county you could be looking at a misdemeanor with pretty good access to treatment,” Knott said. “We had a feeling this was unjust because the outcome is largely due to the county’s resources.”
The bill also requires police officers to record demographic information — including the age, race and sex — of any person stopped during routine pedestrian and traffic stops. The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission will analyze the demographic data police departments collect and will notify them of any disparities so that the departments can make adjustments to their practices.
The bill is now pending review by Gov. Governor Kate Brown, D, who said she is looking forward to signing it into law.
State Rep. Ann Lininger, D, says the bill presents a common-sense policy to get people who are struggling with addiction into treatment and a practical solution to reduce the high cost of incarceration.
“Sending people to jail or prison is much more expensive and not an effective way to get at the root cause of some crimes,” she said. “I think it’s why so many people were able to rally around reducing the felony to a misdemeanor. We can now focus on using scarce resources to help people move forward.”
