Jail Service District Proposal by Jackson County

This post was ready five weeks ago - right as the COVID-19 virus emergency hit. As I post this, it is clear that Jackson County and Sheriff Sickler have essentially withdrawn the proposal, although it is too late to keep it off the ballot in May. Nonetheless, I am posting this because I want my constituents to understand the reasoning behind my vote to put it in front of the citizens of Ashland for a vote.

I have written this blog to share my thinking and what I have learned in the months leading up to the Council’s decision to allow the question of a law enforcement service district to be placed on the ballot for Ashland voters.

First, this decision is being made in the context of the following realities (from the Prison Policy Initiative):

·         The U.S. incarcerates more people per capita than any other country in the world

·         Among U.S. states, Oregon ranks 16th in terms of incarcerating the lowest number of people. We are doing slightly better than the middle of the pack compared to other U.S. states.

·         People of color are over-represented and white people are under-represented in incarceration rates consistently across the country.

·         People in poverty go to jail more often and, once there, are kept in jail longer than wealthier people because of their inability to make bail. Negative impacts to these people from extended jail times is disproportionate as well given their precarious economic situation.

·         Rates of addiction and mental illness are higher in jail populations than in the general population. This reality leads to this question: To what extent are addiction and mental illness driving the behaviors that lead to people being incarcerated?

According to Mental Health America’s 2019 Mental Health in America report, Oregon ranks 49th (of 51 States including DC) in its overall ranking. In this case a high number indicates a higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rate of access to care. This ranking is made up of the combined scores of fifteen measures. Interestingly, while Oregon ranked very low due to high numbers of people with mental illness, our state ranked significantly higher, often in the top 10 or top 20, in rankings related to access to care. We are doing some things right.

At the end of this post, I’ve included some statistics regarding this background information that you might find interesting.

One of the reasons many believe our incarceration rate is so high is because our jails have become the default placement for people suffering from addiction, mental health issues, or both. That makes sense to me given the state of our health care system. It is important to remember, though, that people cannot be arrested for being mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol. But those situations often lead to behaviors that are against the law, which is how those people end up in the criminal justice system.

While not everyone will consent to being treated for mental health or addiction issues until they are in a crisis (and potentially in jail), a lack of accessible treatment for these conditions means that those willing to get help often cannot find it and end up doing something that gets them arrested. It’s also true that the necessary services, while technically available, are not available in the window in which someone is ready to take advantage of them. Our broken health care system nationally is an important part of this conversation.

It is clear that, while Oregon is doing better than many states in terms of access to mental health and addiction care, we need far better health care systems to address these issues EARLY. The earlier the intervention and care, the more likely treatment will help before the person commits a crime that lands them in the criminal justice system. We also need to ensure equal access to economic and educational opportunity for people of all races and genders. We need to reform pre-trial policies so that people in poverty are treated equitably and do not spend more time in jail than their wealthier counterparts. We need to train law enforcement on racial bias and monitor their progress to ensure that the training is having the desired effect of taking bias out of the decisions regarding who to stop, who to ticket/arrest, and the consequences that come in our courts. And we need a functional jail.

Jail vs. Prison

It’s important to remember that jail is fundamentally different than prison in terms of what it is designed to do. Jails are correctional facilities that confine people before or after adjudication. Jail sentences are usually for 1 year or less. Jails also:

• receive individuals pending arraignment and hold those awaiting trial, conviction, or sentencing

• hold probation, parole, and bail-bond violators

• hold mentally ill people pending transfer to mental health facilities, juveniles pending transfer to juvenile authorities, people who have been arrested for federal crimes and are waiting for transfer, and people being held in protective custody, for contempt, and for the courts as witnesses

Prisons are operated by state and federal authorities and are for people who have been convicted and sentenced to more than a year of incarceration. Jails are operated locally and county government is generally responsible for them. In our case, Jackson County operates our jail. When a person is arrested by police officers or the sheriff’s department, they are taken to the local jail so that it can be determined through the arraignment process whether it is safe to release them before their court date. After their court process is completed, some people return to jail if sentenced to jail time by the court. Jails are on some level, a sorting space where different people head down different criminal justice paths based on their situation and history. Because of their role, local jails are a necessary element in law enforcement systems. 

Existing Jail Facilities in Jackson County

The Jackson County Jail is 39 years old and has 346 beds. That is the total number of people the jail could physically hold, but it actually only has a capacity of 300 during the day and 315 at night. That’s because best practices are to only fill a jail to 80-85% of capacity. In addition, while jails may have a certain number of beds, some are single bed cells, some are double bed cells, and some are dorm rooms. How many people can actually be lodged in the jail depends on who is in the jail because those lodged in the jail must be kept safe. So, if enough people are in the jail who cannot be lodged with others, they have to put them in a double bed cell by themselves, which reduces the capacity of the jail. So, while the current jail technically has beds for 346 people, it doesn’t lodge more than 315.

According to the Sheriff, the current jail was never intended to hold more than 284 people, even with the planned additions, when the original design was created. That means all the support spaces in the current building, such as kitchen, laundry, and medical, are too small by today’s standards. This leaves no areas for treatment, meeting with mental health counselors, etc. For reference, the current building is about 77,000 square feet with 346 beds. The proposed new facility is about 215,000 square feet with a proposed 796 beds. Significantly more space will be available in the new proposed jail for these support services.

Forced Releases

Jackson County was sued successfully for overcrowding just five years after it was built. To ensure that the facility does not fail on that front, and because of the number of people who are being arrested and brought to jail, there is a constant pressure to release people before or after their court hearing whether or not the courts have determined that it is safe for that person and for society for them to be released. A forced release occurs when an individual is released from jail because of capacity limitations prior to:

·         making it to first arraignment

·         completing what a judge has recommended for sentencing based on the person’s criminal history

·         completing a recommended sanction by a probation officer.

As a result, while people are often sentenced to a certain amount of time, they rarely serve the entire sentence here in Jackson County. People who commit crimes regularly in our community know very well that jail time is a relatively empty threat because of these forced releases.

These forced releases reduce the effectiveness of our criminal justice system, especially with repeat criminals who understand that the system has little ability to create consequences for their actions until they do something big enough to be sent to prison. At that point, our ability to intervene with these people at the community level is essentially gone. We’ve essentially lost them. This system isn’t good for our communities, but it’s also not good for the individuals released early as it prevents them from staying long enough to be properly assessed in terms of their threat to the community and linked to services if that’s what they need.

From Sheriff Sickler: “In 2018, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office was forced to release 5,300 inmates due to limited capacity. Our current number of high-risk offenders (those who are on supervision and likely to re-offend) in Jackson County is nearly the same as Multnomah County, which has almost four times the population. Multnomah County reported 186 forced releases in 2018. I believe the ‘revolving door’ (forced releases) contributes to our high number of ‘high risk offenders’.”

Mechanical Systems

The jail’s mechanical systems are failing. Jails are used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and people are often angry and acting out while there, so the wear and tear on them is extreme. Because of this intense use, they need to have significant additional investment sooner than would be expected with a typical public building, like a library. The Jackson County Jail is at that point in its life cycle. It either needs major investment or a new building.

Design

Our jail is often described as “punishment through architecture” and having toured the jail, I have to agree with that assessment. It is inefficient in terms of the staffing it takes to ensure that there is appropriate supervision of the inmates and it was not designed to have spaces to accommodate therapy or treatment. It was designed entirely to be a negative experience regardless of the fact that many people there have not yet been convicted of a crime. While I don’t believe jail should be a fun place, the consequence in jail should be temporary loss of freedom rather than psychological trauma. Sheriff Sickler has said that the Sheriff’s Office has worked hard to minimize the psychological trauma caused by the design of the current facility, but there is only so much that can be done when the actual structure is a big part of the problem.

Capacity Needs

The jail does not have adequate capacity. The Sheriff’s office has shared information regarding two studies the National Institute of Corrections has done for the county. In 2006, they recommended 650 beds to meet current need at the time. In 2017, they did not recommend a specific number or even say we should get a new jail but did say that the jail was not meeting the needs of the community. They said another assessment would need to be done to determine the correct number of beds, however that assessment is no longer available due to government funding shortages. The county also hired an architect firm (DLR) to do a needs assessment and feasibility study regarding a new correctional facility. They recommended a 750-bed facility be constructed.

It should be noted that the current proposal of a 796-bed facility does not address future growth over the next several decades. It simply addresses how many beds we would need right now given our current numbers in terms of population, crime, etc. By limiting the current proposal to just what is determined that we need now, the Sheriff’s Office is essentially committing to reducing the per capita jail rates in Jackson County over the lifetime of this facility as local population continues to grow. Given the rates of incarceration across the country, it makes sense to me that we would want to have enough capacity to address the current, large number of local offenders over the next decade or so. At the same time, we need to improve treatment and transition programs, without adding the capacity needed to lodge in our jail the average number of offenders in the U.S. in the future. After all, we need to bring the number of people going to jail down over time by implementing better social and mental health support systems.

This is a long-term infrastructure project, so we have to build it with the expectation that it will serve the community fully for at least 40-50 years. Over that time, our population is expected to continue to grow rapidly. If the Sheriff’s Office was expecting to maintain existing incarceration rates, rather than work with the community to reduce the per capita incarceration rate over the next 40-50 years, he’d be asking for a significantly larger jail.

The Proposal for a New Jail Facility

Sheriff Sickler has come to the communities in Jackson County with a proposal to create a law enforcement service district within the County to provide additional funding, above what the county already invests in the jail, to build and operate a new jail facility. The proposed capacity of the new facility is 798 beds, of which the “usable” bed number would be 638-678 (80-85% of the actual number of beds in keeping with best practices). The county expects to be lodging roughly 650 people as a daily maximum. Sheriff Sickler believes that lodgings and the number of those who stay in jail longer will actually drop off once the backlog is caught up, the perception of a catch and release system dissipates, and enhanced services are offered within the jail. That makes sense to me.

Some folks in the community are claiming that this new proposal “triples” the jail capacity with a 895-bed facility. Those numbers are simply not true. Given that our current facility can hold a maximum of 315 people using best practices, a new jail that can hold a maximum of 678 people using best practices is just a bit more than doubling. Remember this doubling relationship because we are going to come back to this later when we talk about investment in mental health and addiction within the jail.

Why a Service District and Not a Special District?

Service districts are very specific entities and the Oregon Legislature is very strict regarding what a service district can be created for and how a service district can operate. If the people of Jackson County vote for a service district in this process, it will mean that they create an ongoing revenue source for the jail from an increase in property taxes. That money has to be used for standard jail operations, which means it cannot be used for things like mental health services or addiction treatment, etc. However, the budget for the facility would include the standard investment from Jackson County’s general fund plus the revenue from the service district and some other smaller revenue sources.

It is true that the money from the service district would be legally required to focus entirely on paying payments on a bond to build the facility and on staff needed to run it. But the contribution to the budget from Jackson County’s general fund isn’t restricted in this way. That money can be used for mental health treatment, addiction services, etc. and in fact, that’s exactly where more of that funding is being focused in the budget for the proposed jail that has been shared by the Sheriff’s Office. In this budget, the line item for Medical Services (which includes both physical and mental health care) jumps from $785,124 in 2023 at the current facility to $4.3 million in 2024 when the new facility opens. Recall that the number of beds will be a bit more than double what the existing jail has currently. This investment in mental health and addiction services is an increase of over five times the amount of our current investment for a facility that will hold just over twice as many people.

Some community members have suggested that this project would be better handled as a Special District (like our libraries now are). Special districts are operated by an elected board that manages the tax revenue that is collected on behalf of the special district. On the face of it, it seems like a good idea to give people the chance to vote to elect people whose sole responsibility will be to manage a special district focused on law enforcement. But a new jail with a service or special district will have two large revenue sources – restricted funds from the district and unrestricted general funds from Jackson County. If the district has its own elected board managing the district’s budget funds and the Jackson County Board of Commissioners managing its general fund money, we will have one facility budget managed by two different elected boards. From a management standpoint, this is a recipe for trouble. It is far better for a facility to have a single budget overseen by a single elected body.

Wow. That’s a LOT of Money.

Yes, it is. The proposal includes a tax of $.8719 per $1,000 of assessed value. The idea behind the proposal is that the County would pass the service district, which would include the new tax, and then do a facilities bond to help build the building. The revenue from the service district would pay the bond back over the next 20 years and cover some operations. After those twenty years are up, the revenue from the service district would support ongoing operations along with the annual investment from the County. At the beginning of the project, the County would contribute another $60 million in reserve funds and the land, which has been purchased for $6.5 million. Then, the county would continue with its regular contributions from the general fund to fund operations. It’s true that citizens would need to monitor budget processes to ensure that the County continues to properly invest in the mental health aspect of a new jail, but that is the case no matter what path is chosen.

To build and operate the new jail over 20 years, the total investment in the facility (land, building and operations) is $918.5 million – this includes the standard investment of Jackson County’s General Fund money and the money that would come from the new service district. Of that, over $89 million is for “medical services,” which includes mental health and addiction services.

To learn more about the amount of money invested through the County for mental health services vs. through the CCOs, I reached out to Jackson Care Connect, the CCO that serves the largest number of Oregon Health Plan recipients in Jackson County. Jackson Care Connect manages health care services for approximately 45,000 of the roughly 60,000 Oregon Health Plan members in Jackson County. Jackson Care Connect has prioritized building capacity in the behavioral health field locally and has invested significantly over the last several years.  As a result, they have seen a 55% increase in number of members served annually for mental health treatment from 2016 – 2019. They have invested in new mental health providers, supportive housing, rental assistance, and subacute, respite, and transitional housing for members with severe mental illness.

Jackson Care Connect’s projected revenue for 2020 for mental health and substance use treatment is approximately $40 million. This averages out to roughly $890 per person in their system per year. If we assume similar numbers for the 15,000 members of AllCare, then we see the state is making an annual investment of over $53 million per year in mental health care for residents of Jackson County. These numbers do not include investments made by private insurance carriers that cover the remaining 160,000 residents in our county. We cannot get numbers from private insurance companies regarding how much they spend per-capita on mental health for their policy holders in Jackson County, but if we assume a similar investment per person, and that 150,000 people are actually covered by private health insurance (some no doubt still slip through the cracks), that comes to another $133 million per year. This last number is put forward so that we can think in terms of the magnitude of investment. That $133 million could be somewhat smaller or larger, but we can see that there is significant funding being put toward mental health care through insurance (private or public) in Jackson County.

In contrast, Jackson County receives roughly $7 million per year from the state to serve as the local Mental Health Authority and provide crisis mental health services specifically for indigent people. Another couple of million dollars (roughly $3 million this year) arrives annually at the County from contracts with the CCOs to address crisis mental health services to CCO members. You can find a list of the services the County offers on behalf of the state and the CCOs on the County’s website. The CCOs are receiving more than seven times the amount of money the County receives from the state each year ($7 million compared to $53.4 million) and are the ones primarily responsible for mental health and addiction services in Jackson County outside the jail. This information isn’t offered to point fingers at anyone because we are seeing increasing capacity in our region as investments are made year over year from this state funding. It is offered to make the point that the largest investments in mental health in our County are coming from the State through the CCOs and not Jackson County government.

When we do the math for this investment just using today’s dollars ($890/year X 200,000 people who are covered by a CCO or private health insurance), the investment in mental health will be over $1 billion in 7 years in comparison to the $918.5 million that will be spent to build and operate this jail over 20 years. We should also remember that this $918.5 million, includes the money the County is already planning to invest in the jail over 20 years from its General Fund. This proposal does not ask for $918.5 million in new taxes. Still, it is a big investment, so we need to make it wisely.

We should also remember that criminal behavior costs money. Anyone who has been violated in home or body knows that crime also costs money – and is expensive in terms of trauma for victims and their families.

Can’t We Just Fix the Old Jail?

I would generally lean toward fixing an existing facility, but the current jail isn’t designed to modern standards, it needs major seismic and mechanical repair – essentially an internal rebuild – and the land it is on won’t allow for expansion beyond the 315 person capacity we have now. The rebuild would likely cost more than building a new facility, wouldn’t last as long, and it would be difficult to deal with those who are in jail while remodeling the old jail given that there isn’t additional space on the site.

If We Build It, Won’t We Fill It?

There are concerns in the community that if we build a larger facility, there will be a financial incentive to fill it. This is a real concern when it comes to private prisons that are paid for each inmate. Private prisons represent a moral failing in our country. We should never have created a system that creates an industry with a financial interest in keeping incarceration rates high and we need to fix that. Jails aren’t private prisons, though. Jails are generally run by counties and each person in jail costs the county money. So, while this new jail is estimated at 700 beds for budgetary reasons, it’s in the county’s best interest financially to keep those numbers down – even below the best practices number of 678 if possible. The County also operates the Juvenile Detention facility, which has 40 available beds. That facility is generally only about half full.

Will a New Jail Help ICE Detain Community Members?

This is a concern in our community. Sheriff Sickler has stated publicly that our facility does not have contracts in place to detain people for ICE. They do detain people for the Federal Marshall’s office, but he has no intention of holding people for ICE. There isn’t anything to prevent that other than that we act at the ballot box to ensure that we continue to have sheriffs who will not use our facilities in that way.

The Real Problem is That People Don’t Have What They Need

I agree with this in many situations. We know that how a person is raised has a huge influence on how they behave later in life. If they are safe, housed, fed, and educated – and if they have opportunities to create a good life for themselves – they are much less likely to struggle with addiction, mental health issues, and poverty. And people who are not struggling with addiction, mental health issues, and poverty are much less likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

There is much to be done on all of those fronts and that point was made powerfully at the first meeting I attended of the Sheriff’s advisory committee last summer. In that presentation, three men spoke about their criminality and what it took to get clean and create a good life for themselves and their families. They spoke about how it took several attempts and that they had to hit rock bottom in jail in order to do the work as adults to shift the path of their lives.

What struck me in their talks was that they all spoke of experiencing intense trauma as children. They were raised by families that didn’t instill in them the value of being a contributing member of the community. Mental health issues and addiction were present in their families and they weren’t safe and properly cared for growing up. I couldn’t help but think of how much better it would have been if there were early interventions when they were growing up that could have helped them get on a better path before they became addicted to drugs, began victimizing people, and became enmeshed in the criminal justice system. While our community saved money by not intervening when they were children, that bill came due on the backend as these men cost us money to deal with them in the criminal justice system and offer treatment. And they cost their families and communities in terms of stress and trauma. We don’t know those costs, but it’s clear that the cheaper, better alternative would have been to help them when they were children.

Those early intervention services are critically important. Providing mental and physical health care services is the foundation of this, but it is also necessary to ensure that children are fed, safe, and educated. It’s clear that we do not have everything that is needed in place, but with the Oregon Health Plan coverage and the work the County does on behalf of the state to provide crisis services to indigent people, we have made good progress on the physical and mental health care side in the last several years. We have increased significantly our local capacity in this regard, and the new expansion at Asante will add to that capacity.

Our social safety net is not as strong as it needs to be, so we must continue to work to build those efforts out working with the legislature to provide funding for our schools and other social services. We also need to address affordable housing in the region to address the poverty side of this issue. At the same time, we have a large number of people who are “justice involved” who were neglected and/or abused as children and are in our criminal justice system because they have committed crimes. We need to lift both sides simultaneously – early intervention for children and adequate, professional intervention for adults who are now in the criminal justice system.

The County Should Invest This Money in Programs that Help People Avoid Jail Instead

One of the things we run into is the separation between government jurisdictions and what they handle. In the criminal justice system, the state government manages the state police and state prisons while the counties manage sheriff departments and jails, and local municipalities manage city policy departments. State government is also responsible for social services programs like Oregon Trail food benefits and in our case, the Oregon Health Plan for people who otherwise wouldn’t have health care. It’s true that Jackson County is the Mental Health Authority for our county, but only because it is doing that work with funding from and on behalf of the state. While the county’s General Fund can be used for things like homeless shelters and other social services, the county has essential services that it is required to provide, just like the City of Ashland has essential services that it is required to provide. For counties, a sheriff’s office and jail are in that list of essential services they are required to provide.

In our case, Jackson County administers programs on behalf of the state and also contracts to provide services on behalf of local Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) that administer the Oregon Health Plan in our area. So, while Jackson County performs many of those services, those services are not paid for by county money. There is only one place where Jackson County invests its own money in physical and mental health care, and that is in the jail. Because of federal law (that people have been trying to change for over 20 years), people lose their health care coverage when they are taken to jail no matter whether they have been convicted yet or not. The county is responsible for physical and mental health care for people while they are in jail, so the funding from Jackson County for the current jail includes money to provide those services. The federal government has minimal requirements for what this care looks like, and Jackson County reports that they consistently meet or exceed those requirements, but that minimal level of care is not what is actually needed in jails because of the high prevalence of mental health issues and addiction among people in jail.

Local governments across the country are finding expenses rising faster than revenue and it is particularly true in Oregon because of the financial crunch created by poor decision-making in the past at the state level regarding our Public Employee Retirement System, skyrocketing health care costs, and increasingly strict regulations (which in my mind are often necessary). Because of this, local government needs to make sure first that it is meeting its mandates for essential services. The County has to maintain a jail and I believe we want that facility to be a modern facility that is designed and operated according to current best practices.

But I Thought the County Provided Mental Health Services

This mental health care system can be confusing because Jackson County used to perform many of the services that people are calling on them to provide more of in the current context. However, when the Oregon Legislature created the Oregon Health Plan, they decided to go with the CCO (Coordinated Care Organization) model rather than funneling the money through the counties. Prior to this decision, counties received significantly more money from the state and had more responsibilities for mental and physical health care locally. Now, the majority of physical and mental health care services administered within the boundaries of our county are handled by two CCOs - Jackson Care Connect and AllCare.

This Decision about the Jail Should Be Used to Leverage the County to Provide Better Mental Health Care Services

The paragraph above lays out the financial reality of the current investment in mental health within our county and the fact that the County is no longer in the driver seat in terms of mental health care locally. What that tells us is that a lot of money is being invested for mental health services within the boundaries of our county, but the bulk of that investment isn’t being made through Jackson County government. While there very well may be leverage in the system, it is likely to be sitting at the state legislature in relation to how we are measuring the services provided by the CCOs that serve the Oregon Health Care members of our community. I want to be clear that I do not have any reason to doubt the effectiveness of the services provided by the CCOs. In fact, I have had positive personal experiences with both the CCO system and the County. But if we want to look at the system to see how we can continue to improve mental health care and addiction services, we need to look at the whole CCO/County system and make sure the legislature is monitoring its effectiveness. As much as I had hoped that the leverage would be at the County, it just isn’t.

Jail Isn’t the Right Place for Mental Health Care and Addictions Services Anyway

I generally agree. What is also true is that we have quite a number of people whose addictions have advanced to the point where they are causing significant problems for themselves, their loved ones, and our community. We know that treatment is effective only when the person is ready and willing to do the work, which is why having services available when someone is ready to take advantage of them is so important. Sometimes, perhaps often, they have to hit rock bottom before deciding that the hard work of recovery is worth it to stop harming themselves and their loved ones – and to stop landing in jail. In many cases, they need the potential consequence of staying in jail in order to decide that treatment is a better option. With an overcrowded jail, that backdrop doesn’t exist.

When the person reaches their decision to accept treatment, we need to have services in place within the jail and outside of it so that we can meet their needs and support them in their recovery and integration back into the community. In our current situation, the physical space of our jail cannot accommodate mental health and addictions services. It is also worth remembering that some people in jail are being held while waiting for a bed to open up at a long-term mental health care facility. Those people should have access to adequate mental health care and an experience that at least does not exacerbate their mental health challenges. We also need more regional secure psychiatric facilities so that people are not in jail around Oregon waiting for beds to open up at the State Hospital. It’s worth noting that these long-term facilities are paid for directly by the Oregon Legislature and not through either the County or the CCOs.

Jackson County Should Put Other Diversion and Intervention Programs in Place to Help People Avoid Jail

To answer this, we need to differentiate between diversion and intervention programs. Diversion programs are those that allow someone who has been convicted of a crime or violation to take a diversion path that allows them to avoid it showing up on their record. You might experience a diversion program if you get caught not wearing your seat belt. The diversion program might be that you need to go through an education program about the importance of wearing your seat belt in exchange for the fine to go away and not show up on your DMV record. Jackson County’s Drug Court is a good example of a diversion program.

Intervention programs are those that keep someone who is doing something that is likely to end in their arrest from escalating to the point where they go to jail. The CAHOOTS program in Eugene is a good example of this. In this case, perhaps a call comes in because someone is disturbing the peace and it is determined that the person is likely having a mental health emergency. In those cases, another program can be dispatched to address that issue and get the person to mental health care services rather than taking them to jail. Jackson County has a program in place that allows mental health care workers to respond to such calls, but it does need more resources, which could come from private insurance carriers, CCOs, or the state as all three of those entities are directly responsible for those services.

In addition, there are other important interventions that can be put in place throughout the community, such as Restorative Justice programs in local schools, programs to address homelessness and affordable housing, and educational programs that teach parents how to raise their children in ways that avoid inflicting trauma. These are all intervention activities that can help people who are on the path to jail and potentially prison take an exit ramp.

Let’s Build a New Jail, But Make It Smaller

I asked that question myself and learned quite a lot about the design of jails in the process. Moderns jails are built in what are essentially pods where the supervision takes place from the middle and there are four quadrants spanning out from the central area. It’s not like building a hotel where you can just slice off that last section of rooms. The proposal put forward calls for two pods, each with roughly 400 beds and room within the pod for treatment while people are in jail and transition programs for when they are being released. I asked about starting with one pod and adding the second one if needed. What I learned is that it is far less expensive to build both at once than to build one and then wait to build the second at a later date because many of the costs of construction that would only be done once if both pods are built at the same time have to be doubled if the pods are built at different times.

Re-Integration After Time in Jail

One of the most important times for a person who has served time in jail is the transition back to the community. Far too often people transitioning from jail face homelessness, lack of housing and food, lack of employment, and the need to continue to engage with doctors and therapists. The Sheriff’s Department has made good strides in improving these transitional services by offering people exiting the jail the opportunity to connect with these services and by working with Jackson County Mental Health and the CCOs to try to effectively transition people from mental health care offered in the jail to the services offered in the community.

Jackson County Community Justice also runs a Transition Center to provide alternatives to jail for those sentenced and sanctioned locally. Those who participate in the program at the Transition Center have access to Work Release when eligible and participate in Work Restitution programs in the community during their stay. This Center allows for support and engagement as people transition back to the community, and housing for those who are on supervision and lack stable housing resources. The Transition Center provided 43,753 bed-days of service in 2019.

Jefferson Regional Health Alliance

I also learned more about the Jefferson Regional Health Alliance – a regional effort that involves Jackson and Josephine counties, CCOs, local hospitals and clinics, and nonprofits that have come together to improve the health care resources available to people in the two-county region. This effort follows a collective impact model based on collaboration of entities that work on different parts of a specific problem. By coming together to strategize, identify gaps in the system, and work to fill those gaps, they can have a greater collective impact than any of the partners could have on their own. It is a very powerful model, and it is entirely voluntary. Their collaborative work is not mandated by the state or federal government, so a collective action model driven by local leaders in the system is the best path forward.

In early 2019 the Alliance completed its Community Health Assessment and released its Community Health Improvement Plan in June of that year. The plan focuses on addressing the following:

• Behavioral Health & Well-Being (mental health and substance use)

• Housing for All (safe, affordable, appropriate housing)

• Families Matter (parenting support and life skills)

As I write this, working groups focused on implementation are underway for each of these three major focus areas in the plan and Jackson County is involved in the Alliance.

How Are We Doing in Jackson County?

I also learned more from county officials about how we are doing in Jackson County and the State of Oregon regarding incarcerations.

Since 2013, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) in Oregon has consisted of a number of policies aimed at reducing prison growth for drug, property, and driving offenses. The program provides grants to counties to support Justice Involved Individuals in the community versus sending them to prison. These grants began in 2014 and supplement core Community Corrections work in counties, which is funded through the Oregon Department of Corrections.  The program has been very successful throughout the State, with Criminal Justice Commission estimated savings of over 250 million dollars in avoided costs through the end of the 2017-19 biennium.  The bulk of the program success has been through larger counties, such as Multnomah, Washington, and Marion County reducing the number of people they send to prison for JRI offenses.  Jackson County has been the leader in the State in the rate at which it offers community supervision versus a prison sentence for JRI offenses.  Grant programs from JRI have been used for the following in Jackson County:

·         Transitional Care Program – a residential treatment program for Justice Involved Individuals (capacity for 9 men and 6 women) aimed at cognitive/behavioral treatment, employment and housing

·         120 Forensic Outpatient Slots through the Addictions Recovery Center to provide enhanced treatment services to people on supervision in need of treatment

·         Resource Center – a multi-disciplinary support center aimed at assisting individuals releasing from jail and the transition center, as well as others who are justice-involved in accessing resources such as the Oregon Health Plan, housing, alcohol and drug treatment and employment

·         Financial support for victim services through the Children’s Advocacy Center and Community Works (10% of all grant funds go to victim services)

·         Release Assistance Program – providing assessment, supports and supervision for those who can safely be in the community versus jail prior to their court date

·         Multi-Disciplinary Assessment and Supervision – working with the District Attorney’s office to ensure the right people are given opportunities in the community (by assessment and evaluation to help inform sentencing options), and that programs and supports are delivered to help them be successful when possible.

Our Process in Ashland

When the proposal was brought to the Ashland City Council in the spring of 2019, I voted against having it put before the Ashland voters. The request from the county was rejected 3-2. I voted no because I did not hear enough about how the jail fit into the larger system of efforts to reduce criminal behavior. I didn’t want to vote for a larger jail unless it was an integral part of a more comprehensive plan that included addressing the social drivers of criminal behavior. Knowing the links between poverty, race, and incarceration, I wanted to know what else was in place or in development to put off ramps in front of people who were heading toward jail and potentially prison. I wanted to know how the jail fit into the larger landscape of efforts to address these inter-related issues before seriously considering doubling the size of our existing jail. 

Soon after voting no, I went to visit Commissioner Strosser and Sheriff Sickler to share my concerns and what information I believed was needed in the larger conversation. Not too long after, Sheriff Sickler put a community advisory committee together that was open to anyone who wanted to participate, and began having monthly meetings where we heard from a variety of people within the Jackson County structure. That committee was an informal effort that focused mostly on discussion and did not create any formal recommendations back to the Sheriff’s office. Some additional sessions were organized by local advocates to share information about alternative programs like the CAHOOTS model and how similar issues are being addressed in other places. The presentations from the Sheriff’s office and community groups were very informative and after each there was a Q&A/discussion period. I attended regularly as did another councilor from Ashland who also had voted no in the spring.

The Sheriff brought the proposal back again in November with the hope of getting all communities to sign off on allowing their citizens to vote on the service district. In this second round, many people in Ashland came forward and asked that we at least leverage this decision to get more investment from Jackson County in mental health services to keep more people from ending up in jail in the first place. At that meeting I offered a motion to delay the vote for two more weeks so that interested councilors and potentially the mayor could have additional discussions with Jackson County. Three councilors, including me, indicated they wanted to have a conversation with Jackson County and our City Administrator set up a time later that week.

At that meeting, we talked with Commissioner Strosser, the county administrator, the Sheriff, and staff from Jackson County Mental Health. I learned much more about how mental health services are handled in the county by Jackson County and the coordinated care organizations (information I shared above). In the process, I realized that many people in our community, including some advocates, were operating under the same mistaken understanding that I had been – that the County was still responsible for all of the services that it used to be responsible for. So, I asked the county representatives if they would be willing to have similar conversations with community members from Ashland to explain the service delivery system in the county in an effort to get to a shared understanding of the underlying system. They were happy to have additional meetings, so we set up two of them for the next week. I invited several local advocates and they picked the one they could attend.

At the following Council meeting, we asked Jackson County and the CCOs (Jackson Care Connect and AllCare) to come and help us and the Ashland community understand the way the local investment and delivery system works for mental health and addictions services. The information presented was essentially what we had seen in the meetings with the County, but the hope was that everyone in attendance and watching from home would have a better understanding of the context of the jail decision.

My Thinking

I voted to refer this question of a county level law enforcement service district to the Ashland voters. I did so because I understand that no matter the size of a community, it needs to have a jail that at minimum holds people who are arrested until it can be determined whether they can be released before their court date, and is available as a consequence that can be imposed by the court for certain crimes. That jail should be a professional, functional facility where people are able to maintain their dignity while moving through the judicial system.

From all perspectives, in spite of the good efforts of Sheriff Sickler and his team, this jail is failing. If you have a law and order perspective, this jail fails because the forced releases due to capacity issues means that there is not adequate accountability for people who commit crimes in our county. If you come from more of a social services or rehabilitation perspective, this jail is failing because it is unable to offer the services so many of the people who have committed crimes and end up serving jail sentences need.  

When a person is arrested and brought to jail, it is important that they arrive at a facility where there can be a very powerful and effective intervention – a signal that the decisions they are making are not acceptable in their community and the ability to move down a path where the behavior that got them there isn’t repeated. If all jail does is lock people in cells, however, its potential for intervention is limited. If it allows them to clear a substance out of their system long enough to think clearly about the future they want for themselves, and connect with the services they need, it can be a much more powerful intervention than turning them out prematurely because of lack of space.

While jail cannot and should not be the primary way we address addiction and mental health issues, it is also true that some (or many) people who arrive at jail will have mental health or addiction issues that are part of why they committed the crime that got them put in jail. Because of this reality, it is necessary that the jail have the ability to provide physical and mental health services as well as addiction services for people who are serving a sentence in jail.

It’s clear to me that we need a much better facility with more capacity than what we currently have. It’s also clear to me that there is a good team of people, led by Sheriff Sickler, who are working hard and already putting innovative programs in place to help people exit the criminal justice system and be contributing members of our community. To do this innovative work, they need a functional jail – one that provides both accountability and a pathway toward healing and re-integration into the community.

I want to be clear that I did not vote for this service district to go before the Ashland voters as a flippant act simply to “let the people vote.” If I thought it was an unreasonable proposal, I would have voted no. If I thought the rest of what is needed (mental health services, addiction treatment, housing, etc.) was not being aggressively pursued alongside a new jail, I would have voted no. If I didn’t have faith in the integrity and forward thinking of Sheriff Sickler and his team, I would have voted no. Our jail needs investment and it can’t wait until the rest of the change that is underway in the system is fully implemented.

That being said, if our county votes in favor of this new service district, it will be important that we continue to advocate that Jackson County do the following:

·         Ensure that our pre-trial policies do not keep people with fewer financial resources in jail longer than their counterparts who have more resources.

·         Collect adequate data to ensure that we are able to track at the county level how we are doing in terms of the racial distribution of people who spend time in jail. That data collection is now mandated by the state through its Statistical Transparency of Policing program and it is important that the County analyze that data each year and put in place bias training and other resources needed to ensure that people of color are not over-represented in our criminal justice system locally.

·         Continue to work with partners in the Jefferson Regional Health Alliance to move the regional work forward and fill the gaps in services locally

·         Continue to develop alternative solutions to jail, such as a community court, and to expand the intervention and transitional programs already underway

And finally…

As I have listened to the discussion about the jail, I have been struck by the level to which we often fall into “either/or” thinking – and I have wondered how much we are being influenced by the general polarization in our country. In this case, EITHER people seem to think that all people who end up on jail are criminals who were fully capable of making a different decision and will only respond to punishment OR they think all people who end up in jail are there because they have been failed by society.

I’ve often found, as I do in this case, that “both/and” is more generally true. It is both that those who have been failed by their families and our society are more likely to behave in ways that violate the law and land them in jail (which isn’t fair and needs to be addressed) AND some people choose to commit crimes when they could easily make a different decision. Our jail needs to be able to respond to both of these types of people and address the different reasons why they are there. Currently, our jail does neither of these things well.

I have people in my life who I love dearly who suffer from addiction and/or mental illness. I also have people in my life who I love dearly who sometimes make poor choices in spite of not suffering from mental illness or addiction. I expect the same is true for most people. There is some chance that any of my loved ones could make a decision that gets them arrested. If they are arrested, I want them to be taken to a modern facility where they are kept safe, their dignity is maintained, and they can access what they need while they move through the justice system. Our jail is not such a place. It needs some type of major investment and by voting yes, I was voting to give the Sheriff and Jackson County the opportunity to make their case for a service district to the people of Ashland. Each person who votes will need to decide for themselves how their values square with the proposal and in May, the County will have its answer.

I also have people in my life who I love dearly who have been victimized, and traumatized, by people who have committed crimes. We need to make sure we do not forget them in this conversation about the jail.

As always, if you have thoughts about the information printed here, I am happy to have a one on one conversation via email at: tonya@council.ashland.or.us.

Interesting data I’ve found regarding state and federal incarceration rates is below:

Recent data is hard to come by, but according to the Treatment Advocacy Center’s Serious Mental Illness (SMI) Prevalence in Jails and Prisons report:

“In 44 states, a jail or prison holds more mentally ill individuals than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital; in every county in the United States with both a county jail and a county psychiatric facility, more seriously mentally ill individuals are incarcerated than hospitalized.”

This Prison Policy Initiative ranked Oregon against the US. as well as many European countries to see how the state would stack up if Oregon were a country. In this assessment using 2018 data, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi all have incarceration rates above 1,000 per 100,000 people. Massachusetts holds down the other side of the bell curve with 324 per 100,000 people.

Who is being incarcerated?

In addition to the large number of general incarcerations, the U.S. has a significant problem in terms of who is being jailed. Racial incarceration data was last analyzed by the Prison Policy Initiative in 2010, and found the following information nationally:

Race/Ethnicity % of US population % of U.S. incarcerated National incarceration

population rate (per 100,000)

White (non-Hispanic) 64% 39% 450 per 100,000

Hispanic 16% 19% 831 per 100,000

Black 13% 40% 2,306 per 100,000

In Oregon as of the 2010 census, black people are more than six times as likely as their white counterparts to be incarcerated and American Indians are more than two and a half times as likely to be incarcerated as their white counterparts.

Which way is incarceration trending?

There is a bit of good news in all of this. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Correctional Populations in the US 2016 report, which is the most recent report available:

• In 2016, the number of persons supervised by U.S. adult correctional systems dropped for the ninth consecutive year. 

• The percentage of adults supervised by the U.S. correctional system was lower in 2016 than at any time since 1993. 

• The incarceration rate has declined since 2009 and is currently at its lowest rate since 1996.