Inmates lost possessions end up costing state in the long run

The Oregonian

Feb. 25

Our personal favorite is the case of the missing sunglasses.

The inmate at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario couldnt find his. The glasses, he reported, went missing from his cell. And he wanted them back or money.

Inflamed corrections officials declined the inmates offer to settle for less than the amount claimed. The inmate even taunted them by reminding them hed won in court twice before on claims hed brought against the state why would they not see the light this time?

They didnt, and as The Oregonians Les Zaitz reported this week, they lost big. The inmate was paid $215 for the glasses, plus $3.29 in interest. We figure they were pretty handsome specs at that price.

But the real whopper is what it cost the state to fight the inmate: $3,436. For that, we figure, one should go through life never having to shield ones eyes against bright light.

But we do, in not only this instance but to the antiquated procedures surrounding inmate possessions at Oregons correctional facilities.

Logs of inmate possessions may be handwritten by corrections officers. The checklists, hard enough to manage within one facility, may or may not be shared among prisons if the inmate is transferred, a common practice. Our correctional facilities, as a result, are unable to communicate about who has what or had what.

Worse, state rules stipulating and limiting what an inmate may have while incarcerated sometimes go unenforced. Stuff can pile up in the cells, making searches cumbersome and creating for the inmate potential cover for contraband.

Its not really the $260 we all paid an inmate for damage to his TV during a cell search or even the $125 we all paid to another, at Two Rivers Correctional Institution, for the improper confiscation of 250 pages of porn, though this last one is a doozy. Its the fact that we have no systems in place to fix a problem worth about $60,000 a year in payouts, not counting the amount of time we spend processing roughly 1,000 claims a year.

A work group is on it, Zaitz reports. And the challenge is large: Oregon at any time takes responsibility for roughly 14,000 inmates and their stuff.

But at the very least, we can devise a system for knowing who has what, be able to communicate quickly about it and then exercise reasonable care around inmate possessions.

Thats no matter how crazy it seems that anyone doing time needs a cool pair of shades.

Community colleges deserve equal treatment

The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times

Feb. 23

The cutbacks at Linn-Benton Community College announced Feb. 22 by LBCC President Greg Hamann wont be destructive to the college, not by a long shot. But they do suggest a question that our states leaders might want to ponder:

Hasnt the time come to finally stop treating our community colleges like the kids at a Thanksgiving dinner, banished to the little table and getting a chance to dine only after the states university system and K-12 schools get first shot at the main course?

OK, that analogy is a little overwrought: For one thing, it implies (incorrectly, as we all know) that the university system and the K-12 schools get to eat their fill.

The truth is, everyone leaves hungry.

But you can argue that our community colleges are hungriest of all and, in fact, the amount of money community colleges receive from the state has been declining the past few years. Gov. John Kitzhabers proposed budget calls for $410 million from the state, a substantial cut from the $500 million budgeted just a biennium or two ago. Those are real budget cuts, not just cuts to the current service level number.

Hamanns decisions announced publicly Feb. 22 were prompted, of course, by necessity: LBCC needed to plug a $5 million hole in its budget.

The general idea is to cover about 40 percent of that shortfall through tuition increases that its board still must approve, and to cover the remaining amount, about $2.8 million, through expenditure cuts, including about 20 layoffs.

A couple of programs will disappear: LBCCs Child Development Center will be discontinued, although Head Start might move some of its services to the campus. A one-year emergency medical technician program will also get the ax, in large part because other nearby colleges are able to offer the full program and thats the kind of realistically ruthless calculation that our schools need to make.

The irony is that these cuts at LBCC come at a time when our community colleges increasingly are confident about their niche: By working closely with businesses, by being unusually attentive to emerging work force needs, they have become much more nimble at creating programs designed to give workers the skills to succeed in a rapidly changing economy.

So theres no need to treat community colleges like second-rate citizens. In fact, if were really serious about those 40-40-20 educational guidelines for Oregon, which call for 40 percent of adults to have a bachelors degree or higher, another 40 percent to have an associates degree or some sort of professional certification and the remaining 20 percent to have a high school diploma or its equivalent, its obvious that community colleges have a huge role to play in our educational future.

Lets set the adult table for three.

Its almost time for a toast to legislators for brew bill

The Register-Guard

Feb. 26

Home brewers and amateur winemakers throughout Oregon should lift a glass to the Oregon Senate, which unanimously endorsed a bill that would rewrite state law to allow homemade beer and wine to be transported and consumed outside the makers homes.

The right to transport homemade beer and wine was long taken for granted in Oregon until last year, when the state Department of Justice determined that state law, dating to the Prohibition era, barred the consumption outside the home of homemade alcoholic beverages.

Home brewers didnt sit around crying in their lager. They worked with one of their own, Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, to craft Senate Bill 444, which gives home brewers the right to transport their work.

The House should waste no time in approving Prozanskis legislative fix, clearing way for the Oregon State Fair to resume its home-brewed beer contest. The event was canceled last year because it would have been illegal for home brewers to transport their beverages to the fair.

Fixing the law should provide a boost to the states tourist trade the Justice Departments legal interpretation caused Portland to lose its long-standing status as a regional host city for the National Homebrew Competition. It should also clear the way for home brewers to resume their time-honored ritual of hauling their specialty brews to local competitions, home gatherings and other events.

With more than 20,000 Oregonians engaged in home brewing and winemaking, lawmakers have a rare opportunity to be toasted not roasted, for a change for one of their votes.