OPINION

Oregon leaders have looted public safety

Paige Clarkson
Guest Opinion

Two years ago, Oregon’s crime rate was its lowest in 50 years. But last year, homicides in Portland hit an all-time high. Shootings tripled. The state was ranked 8th-worst in the country for property crime.

I’m often asked, “Why is crime so bad? Why aren’t you doing anything?” 

Oregon’s house of justice is burning, and district attorneys are doing everything they can to rescue victims while beating back a fire threatening us all. But when we reach for our tools, they’ve vanished.

Over the last three years, our public safety toolbox has been gradually looted by our state’s leadership. Oregon’s Legislature, appellate courts and governor have blunted law enforcement's ability to search cars and seize guns and drugs and have released more than 1,000 prisoners. Officers’ hands are tied; our hands are tied; trial judges’ hands are tied. We are fighting a losing battle because we don’t have the tools to win.

The Legislature just passed Senate Bill 1510, which prohibits police from stopping a car for a “lighting violation.” The serial killer Ted Bundy was captured because he turned off his headlights at night. Do we really want to take this tool away?

With Senate Bill 1013, the Legislature effectively ended the death penalty while making it harder to send a murderer to prison for life. Those who testified about this bill before lawmakers were admonished not to say “rape” or “murder” because those words were too “traumatizing.” Are we OK granting the power to legislate justice for victims to those who can’t even hear those victims’ real-life experiences?

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Financed by out-of-state interests, the Ballot Measure 110 campaign played to our compassion and decriminalized possession of street drugs — meth, heroin and cocaine — for adults and children. It promised treatment in lieu of criminal charges for those struggling with addiction. Of the 1,826 folks ticketed for drug possession last year, only 19 sought treatment. And only a handful of others called a phone number to get their ticket dismissed. They’re not required to do treatment and nobody is checking.  

The Legislature sent the most violent juvenile offenders, who Oregonians voted should be tried as adults, back to juvenile court and made them eligible for parole after 15 years. Under these new laws, Kip Kinkel, who murdered his parents and classmates in a school shooting, could’ve been paroled a decade ago. Legislators promised this change wouldn’t be retroactive, but the governor made it so anyway for hundreds of offenders.

Oregonians pay more per capita for public defense than every state except Massachusetts. Our public defenders’ annual budget is $47.5 million more than all 36 county district attorney budgets combined. We fund 592 full-time defense attorneys, to 429 prosecutors. Private attorneys make the disparity greater still.

Oregon’s public safety system is burning. It’s never been more difficult to protect victims of crime, so it’s never been more important to say enough is enough.

Let’s tell our leaders to give law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to put out the fire.

Marion County Attorney Paige Clarkson

Paige Clarkson is the Marion County District Attorney. She was appointed in 2018 and elected in 2019. A graduate of Willamette University College of Law, Clarkson lives in South Salem her husband and their four teenagers. You may reach her at districtattorney@co.marion.or.us