Reyes Miranda isn't the type of guy to get a lot of sympathy
in the state Capitol. The 40-year-old is serving a life
sentence for aggravated murder at Oregon State Penitentiary
just down the road from the rotunda, where he's been since
1987, two of those years on death row.
Still, Miranda has a message for John Kitzhaber: You're
making a big mistake.
Every biennial budget proposal from the governor has
its share of winners and losers, and this year, facing
a $700 million shortfall, Kitzhaber will be bearing a
lot of bad tidings. The first casualty seems to be the
Department of Corrections, which is not only cutting its
budget by 6.2 percent but also dramatically changing the
way it treats prisoners.
Miranda is on the board of directors of Los Hermanos,
an outreach program to Oregon schools that shows kids
what it's like on the inside of prison in hopes they'll
never find out first-hand. He's also active in the Chicano
Culture Club at OSP, which he says is an alternative to
the yard gangs that are prevalent in prisons.
"With Measure 11, we have a lot of youngsters coming
into a maximum-security penitentiary," he says. "Right
now, they have a couple of options. They can go out into
the yard and be in a gang, or they can be part of something's
that positive."
Miranda worries that, thanks to Kitzhaber's budget cuts,
those options are about to end.
The Department of Corrections operates 13 prisons around
the state for 10,000 prisoners. As in the rest of the
nation, prisons in Oregon are now seen primarily as a
place to punish people, not rehabilitate them. But some
perks are still available.
Most of the prisons, for example, offer cultural clubs
for inmates; at OSP there's the Chicano Culture Club,
the Lakota Oyate Ki for Native Americans and the Uhuru
Sasa for African Americans. There's also weightlifting
and sports. Perhaps more important are the educational
services, such as the program at Snake River Correctional
Institute in Ontario that helps inmates earn their GEDs,
or the drug-treatment program at Columbia River Correctional
Institute in Portland. In addition, all prisons offer
a variety of work programs, thanks to a voter-passed initiative
that requires Oregon inmates to be productive 40 hours
a week.
That is all about to change. In fact, the change has
already started.
Kitzhaber's budget was released the morning of Dec. 1.
That afternoon, 35 full-time and eight part-time employees
of the Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario who
ran the educational department at Snake River received
layoff notices. Educational programs for prisoners at
Two Rivers Correctional Institute in Umatilla also ended.
Under Kitzhaber's plan, rather than offer a variety of
services at every site, the prisons will, in essence,
specialize. The DOC plans to focus basic education services
at OSP and Oregon State Correctional Institution (in Salem),
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution (Pendleton) and
Columbia River Correctional Institution. Snake River and
Two Rivers, in turn, will focus on work and training beginning
in January. All drug and alcohol programs, meanwhile,
will be moved to OSP.
Currently inmates are assigned to prisons based on what
space is available and what kind of crimes they commit.
Under the new plan, they will be sent to prisons where
the services match their needs. If they've got a drug
addiction, they'll go to OSP. If they want to develop
a trade, they may be headed for Ontario.
Scott Taylor, assistant director of programs, admits
that during the transition time, some people might not
get a chance to complete their education while in prison.
If an inmate with only a few months left wants to get
a GED, for example, and is housed at Snake River, "by
the time we get to you it's too late. There may be some
people who will fall through the cracks. We're trying
to avoid that. We're trying to be aware of who they are
and what we have where they're located."
But the governor's proposal does more than consolidate.
"In the Department of Corrections, we took the philosophy
and viewpoint that we would reduce some of the services
going toward the inmates in order to achieve the reductions
we had to have," says Kitzhaber aide Steve Marks.
Morning exercise yards will be closed at all prisons.
Programs such as HIV awareness, Alcoholic and Narcotics
Anonymous, anger management, pre-employment training,
clubs and intramural sports are eliminated in six institutions
and significantly reduced in a seventh.
Anthony Rozzell is serving time at OSP for breaking parole
on a 1990 manslaughter charge. He is also the inmate executive
director of the HIV/AIDS Awareness Program at OSP, which
teaches prisoners how to avoid infecting themselves and
others. Like Miranda, he has been told that all activities
programs are going to be cut starting June 30 under the
governor's budgets.
"If this happens, eventually, there will be chaos," he
says. "If they take away everything, there is nothing
to lose. Right now, there is no idle time. Idle time brings
about trouble."
And trouble from prisoners means headaches--or worse--
for employees.
Mary Botkin has been the lobbyist for the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees for 20 years.
She represents the people who work as corrections officers
and recreation yard monitors and run the prison programs.
Botkin says her people are worried, not only about their
own jobs, but about keeping peace inside the institutions.
"You can go back to the beginning of time, and professional
corrections folks are on the record saying that programs
are how we keep the institution safe," she says. "I want
to know how they're going to do that under this
budget."
