Nancy Merritt
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 152
Get eBook
In 1994, Oregon voters passed Measure 11, a measure that imposed long mandatory prison terms for 16 designated violent and sex-related offenses, prohibited "earned time," and provided for mandatory waiver of youthful offenders to adult court. This measure stood in sharp contrast to sentencing practices at the time, overlaying the state's existing sentencing guidelines system for selected offenses, increasing the length of prison terms imposed, and reducing judicial discretion at the sentencing phase. Proponents of the measure felt that it would improve public safety by both deterring future criminal behavior and increasing the length of time that serious felons spend in prison. Opponents, on the other hand, believed that the measure would adversely affect criminal justice system operations and reduce system integrity. In 1998, the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission (OCJC) received funding from the National Institute of Justice to study the implementation and outcomes of Measure 11 across the state as a whole, and within three counties: Multnomah, Lane, and Marion. This study, conducted by RAND under subcontract to the OCJC, draws upon a number of state level databases and interviews with state and county stake-holders to answer key questions about how the measure was developed, its relationship to the existing sentencing practices in the state, impacts on the types of sentences imposed, admissions to prison, and sentence lengths imposed, as well as how sentencing practices changed for both adults and youths. Our original proposal included an analysis of prosecutorial decisions. Though extensive efforts were made to obtain county prosecutor data during the study time frame, these data were not available. Further, preliminary analyses showed the statewide Oregon Judicial Information Network (OJIN) data to be unsuitable for this type of analysis.
