Hell’s coming, but it isn’t coming for Oregon legislators. It’s coming for some unlucky, ordinary Oregonians who will encounter violence – courtesy of lawmakers who sided with criminals in the recently concluded legislative session.
At least, we can still call them “criminals.”
Among the laws passed this session in the Oregon legislature was one requiring that “inmates” be called “adults in custody” in all state statutes. This will help humanize people who rob, steal, rape, assault, kill.
How many Oregonians know about this absurdity?
Not many.
By comparison, almost everybody in Oregon knows about state Sen. Brian Boquist (R-Dallas). He’s the legislator who told Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem): “If you send the state police to get me, hell’s coming to visit you personally.”
The challenge came after Republican state senators walked off the Senate floor in protest. They were upset over the Democratic supermajority snubbing rural concerns in proposed climate-change legislation.
Boquist, who knows how to get media attention, kicked it up a notch when he also told a Portland television station that if the state police came looking for him, they should “send bachelors and come heavily armed.”
Eventually Republican senators returned to work, and the legislature concluded its session (minus the climate-change bill). But some of Boquist’s Democratic colleagues didn’t want to share the Senate chambers with him. They were concerned for their safety.
Sen. Sara Gelser (D-Corvallis) thought he posed a threat.
“Everyone has a right to be safe,” she told the Salem Reporter. “I will no longer support leaders or processes that empower those who intimidate, harass or threaten others. At some point someone has to stand up and say ‘Enough!’ There is no excuse for enabling or minimizing such threats in the name of Senate comity.”
Yet Gelser, along with most Democrats and some Republicans, gladly voted for Senate Bill 1008, which will make it easier for violent juveniles to avoid incarceration or the public scrutiny of adult court.
This is good news for anyone 15 to 17 years old who commits attempted murder, assault, robbery, sexual assault against very young children, manslaughter and murder. Previously, these offenders would have been sent to adult court under the requirements of Measure 11, approved by voters.
SB 1008 overturned the juvenile portion of Measure 11. The news media, which should have known better, believed the legislators and social justice groups who falsely claimed that Measure 11 was denying “children” a “second chance” before sending them to “adult” prison.
The reality is that offenders under the age of 25 are sent to the Oregon Youth Authority. Juveniles are not sent to adult prisons.
Under Measure 11, juveniles could still be given what’s called a “second look” after they completed half their sentence to see if they qualified for early release.
Even in some of the most notorious murders, juvenile offenders were freed early. When Trevor Walraven was 14 years old, he and his 18-year-old brother carjacked and murdered 65-year-old Bill Hull in Josephine County. The two teens drove around in Hull’s SUV and took two girls on a date.
The crime occurred in 1998, and Walraven was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 30 years. He was freed after serving about 18 years.
To his credit, in media interviews he readily identified his victim by name and acknowledged that Hull’s family expected his sentence to be 30 years.
“Part of how I think the justice system is failing us is by not better informing victims’ families,” he told the Portland State University Vanguard.
However, he is now part of a professional chorus that lectures for criminal justice reform. He does not take complete responsibility for what he did and blames his parents for giving him too much freedom.
Section 42 (7) of the Oregon Constitution states, “In no event is it intended that the criminal defendant be considered the victim.” During the campaign to gut Measure 11, some violent juveniles prosecuted as adults claimed to be “school-to-prison-pipeline victims.”
It went unchallenged.
Under SB 1008, judges now will be free to keep violent juveniles out of adult court to avoid long sentences. Why would a judge do that? Political ideology. Or a desire to play favorites as a judge recently did in New York when he ruled that a 16-year-old accused in a premeditated and vicious rape should go to juvenile court – not adult court – because he came from a “good family.” An adult criminal record would hurt his chances of getting into a good college, the judge said.
Unequal justice and lenient sentencing were some of the reasons why voters approved Measure 11 in 1994.
Progressive Democrats and social justice organizations have been trying to overturn it for years. I’ve attended various conferences, panel discussions, theatrical performances, speeches, forums devoted to weakening Measure 11. Typical of these events was one sponsored almost a year ago by the allegedly nonpartisan League of Women Voters in Portland. Entitled, “Juvenile Justice: Are We Improving Outcomes for Youth?” the members of the panel did not include a single supporter of Measure 11.
One of the panelists was Kimberly McCullough of the ACLU of Oregon. In her bio box accompanying the program, here’s how she is described: “Kimberly’s favorite free time activities are dancing, crafting, and smiling. She is particularly fond of alpacas, robots, and all manner of things that are cute.”
There is nothing cute about the crimes violent juveniles commit.
When Rep. Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland), a long-time opponent of Measure 11, opened a public hearing on SB 1008, she didn’t want members of the public who planned to testify to reveal too many details of the crimes they suffered.
“If your testimony is going to include graphic details … please say so,” she said.
She was pre-empting ugly truths as if she were concerned for other victims.
The ugliest truth, as acknowledged several years ago by the executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission in a legislative hearing, is that it’s the poor and the destitute who have benefited from the drop in violent crime that followed Measure 11. Democratic and Republican politicians know this. The media gush over the bipartisan nature of criminal justice reform without noticing who will most likely pay the price. It won’t be the Koch brothers or George Soros.
Oregon’s Democratic supermajority is determined to dismantle the state’s public safety net. It’s as cruel as the Republican supermajority in Tennessee, which is determined to unravel that state’s social safety net (no more Medicaid for poor human beings, but sanctity of life for their zygotes).
Here’s what else the Oregon Legislature recently did for public safety:
SB 1013: Death penalty reform. Among other things, this removes “future dangerousness” as a factor for jury consideration in deciding a sentence of death.
SB 577: Getting tough on hate crimes. While Oregonians are expected to be more tolerant of violence, the legislature wants zero tolerance on hate crimes. It also has expanded the definition of who is protected from hate to include “gender identity.” If you’re a man, and you reject a woman with a penis, is that a bias crime? Just posing that scenario might be deemed hateful.
Seriously, this law requires the Oregon District Attorneys Association and the Dept. of State Police to develop a method of recording data related to crimes motivated by bias. Also required will be a Hate Crimes Hotline and a Department of Justice Hate Crimes Coordinator to respond to complaints in a “culturally competent” manner. Remember that next time your home is burglarized, and nobody cares.
HB 3377: This establishes a Joint Committee on Conduct to develop and maintain a respectful workplace policy and ensure the State Capitol does not condone a hostile work environment. Meanwhile, if you’re threatened by a homeless camper in your neighborhood, suck it up.
There’s more where those came from. Even Senate President Peter Courtney admitted he couldn’t keep track of all the bills passed this session.
Some legislation has already been discussed for next year. With the success of HB 3146 replacing the term “inmate” with “adult in custody,” there has been talk of allowing prisoners to wear civilian clothes.
But what if a prisoner in civilian clothes walks away from the penitentiary in Salem and wanders into the state Capitol building? As long as he doesn’t inappropriately touch a legislator, all will likely be forgiven.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Nurturing Our ‘Freddy Kruegers’
I was over and posted something about the Twilight Zone you wrote about. I finally saw it. My family down in Barstow saw walkout story on the news and wandered if Oregon’s as messed up as California. They’ve been letting alot of inmates out of prison. Like you say, they hit the poor people first. Crime’s going up but doesn’t get noticed in the poor neighborhood.
After reading your comment, I went online and looked at crime stats for California, which is an exercise in confusion since there are so many statistics and various ways of interpreting them. (That’s if they are even worth interpreting since numbers do, in fact, lie if they aren’t true to begin with.)
Earlier this year, USA Today reported the top safest and least safe cities in California. Not surprisingly, wealthy communities like Hillsborough and Palos Verdes Estates rated highly in safety but also places like Truckee. The least safe were Vallejo, Santa Cruz, Calexico, Oroville and Emeryville. Barstow didn’t merit a mention.
But just last year, USAT reported that Barstow was the most dangerous city in California! Here’s the report from 2018 (the stats are two years old):
“Of the nearly 300 cities in California, Barstow is the most dangerous. There were 1,511 violent crimes in Barstow for every 100,000 people in 2016, more than three times the statewide violent crime rate of 445 per 100,000. Local authorities point to a range of causes for the high crime rates in the region, including drugs and insufficient resources to reintroduce ex-convicts into society.
“Like many of the cities on this list, a large share of Barstow residents are poor. Some 36.7% of area residents live below the poverty line, more than double the 15.8% state poverty rate and the 15.1% U.S. rate.”
What’s really dangerous is the way journalists gobble up these stats and swallow them whole. Earlier today I read an excellent explanation of how this works on “hate crimes,” which are all the rage right now:
http://www.bendbulletin.com/opinion/7288791-151/lukens-column-how-a-savvy-business-shallow-reporting
Good story from the Bulletin. Crime stats can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood for reasons nothing to do with crime. Some neighborhoods expect-or tolerate more crime and don’t waste time reporting it. Hate crime is a politically motivated scam. Arrest the perp for assault or whatever the real crime is.
Like chief Outlaw saying she needs a new law to arrrest someone wearing a mask while committing a crime. C’mon. Arrest them for the crime they’re committing.