SENTENCE RULES HAVE HIGH COSTS

Measure 57 Involves Incarceration For Non-Violent Property, Drug
Offenders

Facing grim cutbacks in state programs and services, legislators also
will have to pay for a new tough-on-crime sentencing measure approved
by Oregon voters.

Corrections Director Max Williams said his agency is making
provisions for housing an influx of non-violent property and drug
offenders in temporary beds placed at prisons throughout the
13,640-inmate, 14-prison system.

"We're operating under the governor's recommended budget, which is
sort of a least-cost implementation plan," he said. "For us, it means
that we're going to house people for a longer period of time in
temporary and emergency beds before we can build permanent beds for
them. It may mean at some point having to look at the possibility of
(county) jail-bed rentals. It means doing more with less in a lot of
respects."

Prior to the November election, a state "price tag" committee
estimated that Measure 57 would cost $152 million during the
2009-2011 budget period for inmate incarceration, drug and alcohol
treatment and other costs - more than double the $74 million now
being recommended by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Lawmakers, who placed Measure 57 on the ballot as an alternative to a
more expensive version sponsored by Salem Republican activist Kevin
Mannix, will decide how much money to spend on Measure 57.

Mannix's measure would have imposed mandatory prison sentences for
first-time identity thieves, burglars and drug dealers.

State analysts estimated that it would have required the state to
spend more than $1.5 billion for prison expansion and operating costs
to lock up 4,106 to 6,389 extra inmates by mid-2012.

In comparison, analysts estimated Measure 57 would send to prison an
estimated 1,670 property and drug offenders, requiring the state to
spend $314 million for prison expansion, plus $411 million in
operating costs in the first five years.

The Measure 57 offenders are expected to start entering the prison
system this spring.

New prison

Prison officials initially plan to house Measure 57 property and drug
offenders in temporary beds placed at existing corrections
institutions across the state. However, the state also is moving
forward with previously approved plans to build a new prison in
Junction City, next door to a planned psychiatric hospital. The
prison facilities will start with a 600-bed minimum-security lockup
scheduled to open in 2012.