Lawmakers Promise Accountability The bill requires the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission to report to the Legislature yearly on how the programs are working, including showing how many people are arrested. The state’s own analysis found that people of color would be disproportionately more likely to end up in jail. Kotek has promised to hold counties accountable to try to ensure that the new programs don’t backfire. Lawmakers said they will also monitor how the new approach is working. They said they will revisit the issue. They did not consider the bill to be the only solution to solving Oregon’s addiction problem.
example, Washington County has seen an increase in failure to appear cases in the last few years, Barton said. In 2023, the county had more than 7,800 failure to appear incidents, he said. “The goal of having deflection programs in place will make people in criminal justice and law enforcement aware of the
opportunity to treat patients, and to think of people in custody as patients first.” “So how are we going to address that landmine as we move forward?” Barton said. Police can’t simply arrest people and put them in jail when they fail to appear. Each county will have to look for different solutions. Washington County,
“There is going to be active and intentional engagement from the Legislature,” said Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego. “We need to all be doing what we can to pull in the right direction to address the addiction crisis in Oregon.” n
for example, might use its Community Corrections Center to house people and get them into treatment when they fail to make court appearances. The facility, which would ensure that suspects are supervised while trying to get them into treatment, has room for about 215 people. It also allows people to leave on work release, though he said that’s not used as much as it could be.
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The Business Review | April 2024
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