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Plan To Build More Prison Beds For Oregon Women Faces Opposition

By Kieran Hanrahan (OPB)
Oct. 15, 2016 1:30 a.m.

The Oregon Department of Corrections is asking the state Legislature for $10 million to open a second women’s prison because of overcrowding at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville.

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The Oregon Justice Resource Center's Women in Prison Project opposes the plan, which would reopen an empty annex at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem to house female prisoners.

Coffee Creek, Oregon’s only women’s prison, was designed to house 1,253 women but currently holds 1,296. Julia Yoshimoto, director of the Women in Prison Project, worries that creating more housing for female inmates would distract from criminal justice reform.

“Our concern is that, if we do open up a second women’s prison … that this is going to become the new norm, that there’s a missed opportunity here to really be looking at other possibilities for addressing over-incarceration and the incarceration of women,” Yoshimoto said.

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The Women in Prison Project is calling for Oregon to reduce its population of incarcerated women by diverting offenders from prison, making it easier for women to petition for clemency from the governor and releasing some prisoners early.

Liz Craig, communications director at the Oregon Department of Corrections, said Oregon’s female prisoner population has almost quadrupled over the past 20 years. The male population has only doubled.

“We’ve seen a shift over the last 20 years to a sentencing system that’s focusing more on drug and property crimes,” Craig said. “And when you look at men who are incarcerated versus women who are incarcerated, women are incarcerated at a much higher rate for drug and property crimes than men are. And so there’s been a disproportionate impact on the women’s population.”

That focus shifted in part when Oregon voters voted to pass Measure 11 in 1994. The measure added mandatory minimum sentences to some crimes, from robbery to murder. Of Oregon's 16,000 prisoners, almost a third of those would not be in prison if not for Measure 11, according to a 2007 state estimate.

Ten percent of Oregon's female inmates are in prison solely on drug charges, according to an Oct. 1 census. Another 21 percent are in on drug charges in addition to other crimes.

The Coffee Creek Correctional Facility has been embroiled in controversy in recent years. A 2014 investigation from the Oregonian revealed prison staff had abused female inmates for years without facing consequences. The state ultimately settled with 17 victims for $1.2 million dollars.

A Coffee Creek prison guard was arrested as recently as this week on 11 counts of sexual misconduct.

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