Tools to Promote Safer Communities

While other states reduce incarceration and crime, Oregon is on track to spend $600M on new prison space

There is a serious irony to this dynamic.

The policy changes that reduce prison expansion are critical, but without investing in our local public safety infrastructure, we will not actually be strengthening Oregon’s approach to crime and accountability in sustainable ways.

The landscape around criminal justice and public safety issues is changing. We all want to live in safe communities. The question becomes, how do we best address crime and maintain safety.

What PPB policies will not change are the problems at the root of how our society deals with mental health.

Your vote is your voice. When we vote, we are actually telling elected officials and lawmakers how we feel about education, public safety, social security, health care and other important issues.

We are really tired of having to choose between funding our prisons and educating our children — and when K-12 class sizes grow right along with prisons, we’ve made those choices.

Very little is known about how Measure 11 is actually implemented, especially with regard to youths.

Oregon’s prison problem has not yet reached the extreme crisis level of California, but Oregon’s ever-increasing prison growth and spending should not be dismissed.

But many advocates argue the Justice Commission’s report debunks that argument for Measure 11 in its entirety.