Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:

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The Mail Tribune, April 28, on the state of Oregon’s foster care system:

Oregon’s broken foster care system continues to make headlines, the most recent story details a heated legislative hearing in which a key senator said she has lost confidence in the state Department of Human Services. In response, the agency’s latest director complained about “public shaming sessions” and said staff members are “breaking their back” to ensure children are safe. Meanwhile, a national advocacy group has sued the state on behalf of 10 child plaintiffs, seeking class-action status to represent all 8,000 children in the Oregon system and asking for a court order forcing the state to fix the problems.

Two days after the lawsuit was filed, Gov. Kate Brown weighed in with an executive order creating a Child Welfare Oversight Board to develop solutions and a crisis management team to implement them.

Governor, that ship has sailed.

The lawsuit lists horrifying details of neglect and abuse suffered by children supposedly under the state’s protection:

A brother and sister, ages 7 and 8, who were in foster care for less than two months but were in four and five placements respectively. They had lice when they entered the system but waited more than a month for treatment because caseworkers did not give their insurance information to foster parents.

A 13-year-old boy who suffered physical abuse, allegedly by his father, resulting in 35 reports to the state. State workers left him in a home despite reports he was being sexually abused by another boy living there, and he began defecating in his pants at school to protect himself from the other child, who was a schoolmate.

A 17-year-old Native American boy in and out of the system since 2005 who has been moved 50 times. He has never lived with any foster family who is a member of his tribe. And he’s about to “age out” of the system.

These are only a few examples.

Brown told reporters last week, “we all in this state bear responsibility for what is happening in our foster care system.”

Yes, but as the state’s chief executive, the governor bears ultimate responsibility for fixing a system that is failing the children it serves on a daily basis. Those children cannot wait for an oversight board to “develop solutions.”

As Marcia Lowry, executive director of A Better Childhood, the nonprofit that filed the lawsuit, said of Brown’s plan, “It’s too little, too late.” Her organization wants a court order to force immediate action. The state’s lawyers, however, want Brown removed as a defendant in the case.

If Brown is serious about fixing the problems, she will direct state officials to settle the lawsuit as quickly as possible, and agree to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of all of Oregon’s children.

Anything less is unacceptable.

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The Bulletin, April 27, on Oregon legislation addressing housing issues in two communities:

Oregon’s housing problems are statewide. They’re being felt in relatively small upper Willamette Valley communities and in Malheur County in far Eastern Oregon. Two bills in the Legislature take very different approaches to the problem, and lawmakers should give them a chance.

House Bill 2997 was sponsored by state Rep. Ron Noble, R-McMinnville, on behalf of the McMinnville Affordable Housing Task Force. If approved, it would allow the city to change its inclusionary zoning laws to require that 5% of dwellings in new housing developments be affordable to those whose income is 80% of the median family income in the county. It would increase workforce housing in the community.

The bill is carefully written to apply to McMinnville only.

House Bill 2456, sponsored by Rep. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, would allow housing development on up to 200 acres within the Eastern Oregon Border Economic Development Region, an area that includes land close to the Idaho border in Malheur County. Development could occur only on marginal farmland, on 2-acre parcels. While it is not targeted at any particular income group, expanding the stock of available housing, as this bill would allow, should help ease a housing crunch there. It could expand the county’s housing stock by as many as 100 homes.

Each one of the measures proposes things that under current land use regulations are not allowed in Oregon, but both would increase available housing in their communities. Too, the measures might not be desirable or workable in every city and county in Oregon, but supporters believe they’ll work in McMinnville and Malheur County.

Lawmakers should approve both measures. Giving local communities the power to come up with local solutions to their housing problems can help ensure those solutions will work.

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The Register-Guard, April 27, on juvenile sentencing reform:

Oregon Senate Bill 1008 would allow judges to use discretion when sentencing juveniles aged 15 to 17 and end the practice of automatically charging teens accused of Measure 11 crimes as adults. It has passed the Senate. Now representatives should send it to the governor’s desk.

The bill would rescind mandatory-sentencing laws and defaults to placing young offenders, even of serious crimes, in the juvenile justice system. That would undo the heavy-handed and harmful policies that force young offenders into the adult correctional system when they have committed serious crimes. At the same time, the bill does allow for harsher penalties when circumstances warrant.

The bill requires a special hearing to override the default and remand a youthful offender to custody of the Department of Corrections. It also provides the option for young offenders convicted as adults to request a second-look hearing halfway through their sentence, requires additional review before prisoners are transferred from juvenile-justice facilities to adult prisons and eliminates sentences of life without parole for offenders under the age of 18.

In short, it revokes many of the provisions established by 1994’s Measure 11 as applied to juveniles, replacing them with a more nuanced and clearheaded application of the voting public’s intentions and established best practice.

The crimes covered by Measure 11 and SB 1008 include murder, robbery and sexual crimes. In some cases, it may be in the best interests of justice to ensure that juveniles found guilty of these offenses serve prison terms that include long incarcerations in adult prisons. SB 1008 preserves that option, making it an active choice, determined on the facts of each individual case, rather than the default for all crimes listed.

Oregonians want their youth-justice system to focus on prevention of crime and rehabilitation of young offenders. A March 2019 poll of Oregon voters conducted by GBAO found that 88% of all voters support these goals. Support was impressively bipartisan: 80% of Republicans, 87% of independents and 96% of Democrats endorse the notion that rehabilitation of juvenile offenders is preferable to sheer punishment. Our current system, built largely as a response to Measure 11, does not reflect these wishes.

In 1995, then-Attorney General Ted Kulongoski chaired a task force that spurred the creation of the state’s juvenile corrections agency, the Oregon Youth Authority. In a meeting with our editorial board this week, OYA Director Joe O’Leary shared his observations, including the results of OYA’s own research, which confirms what nationwide meta-analyses have consistently shown: juveniles incarcerated by the Department of Corrections are twice as likely to commit subsequent crimes than those who serve their sentences in the juvenile justice system.

OYA is uniquely poised to offer inmates the types of correction, discipline and opportunity most appropriate to juveniles. Young people’s brains continue to mature structurally until the mid-20s, so young offenders respond better to OYA’s approach.

The fact that youth brains differ from adults is fundamental to the rest of the changes in SB 1008. Medical science has documented that immature brains are more impulsive and prone to making poor decisions. Justice and punishment should consider biological reality.

SB 1008’s opponents, including Lane County District Attorney Patty Perlow, raise serious questions about the community’s duty to the victims of serious crime. They worry that despite assurances from backers of the bill and legislative attorneys to the contrary, some incarcerated criminals will try to apply the new rules retroactively. They also point out that SB1008 would overturn a voter-approved measure rather than letting voters decide if they want change.

Those are serious concerns that supporters of the bill must address openly and honestly.

The bill is not retroactive. It applies only to sentences imposed on or after January 1, 2020. It does not apply to those currently serving sentences. That’s written into the bill and supported by case law.

Any attempt to chip away at an initiative approved by popular ballot should be viewed with suspicion. That’s not what’s happening here. Along with Measure 11, 1994’s successful Measure 10 specifically permits the Legislature to change Measure 11’s provisions with a two-thirds majority. It has done so several times already. There is no way to construe SB 1008 as legislative overreach without dishonoring Measure 10. And if voters really don’t want this change, a referendum or new initiative remains an option.

Support for SB 1008 is strong with the public. Attorney General Ellen Rosenbloom supports it, too, as do the directors of the Department of Corrections and Oregon Youth Authority. Even Oregon district attorneys are split on it. The Senate voted across party lines to pass the bill. It’s time for the House to follow suit.