Readers respond: Crime victims and offenders have a shared interest in transforming our justice system

This shows the Lee Correctional Institution on Monday, April 16, 2018, in Bishopville, S.C. Multiple inmates were killed and others seriously injured amid fighting between prisoners inside the maximum security prison in South Carolina. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

By Andy Ko

The executive pardon of Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond by Donald Trump has stirred up a lot of feelings about the Hammonds' story, the Bundys and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. On July 14, The Oregonian's Editorial Board drew an important lesson from the case and pardons: Every American, whether we identify politically as left, right or center, should be deeply concerned about mandatory minimum sentences and their shocking results.

I agree. But excessive mandatory minimums are just one aspect of a criminal justice system that is remarkably ill-equipped to meet the needs of people affected by crime or to prevent crime before it happens. As Americans, we over-criminalize problems that would be much more effectively and fairly addressed in other ways. And we waste tax dollars that should be used to maintain public infrastructure, educate our children and ensure high quality, affordable health care.

So, what is the solution? Maybe we should ask whether the current system is giving us what we need and if not, set a few clear and achievable goals. Here are some drawn from our work at Partnership for Safety and Justice.

  • Support crime victims' healing
  • Establish appropriate forms of accountability
  • Do the real work to prevent crime
  • Commit to an equitable justice system
  • Retool our collective response to crime

That might seem like a lot. It is a lot. But it is work already underway here in Oregon and across the nation. Earlier this month, The Pew Charitable Trusts released a report showing that 35 states have adopted a policy known as "justice reinvestment" that improves public safety by reallocating funding used to punish crime to programs that prevent crime from occurring in the first place.

Adopted in Oregon in 2013 -- and up for renewal again by the Legislature in 2019 -- Oregon's justice reinvestment program is one of the most highly developed in the nation. Communities throughout Oregon also are exploring local options to effectively reduce the use of jails and prisons while increasing public safety. Cities and counties are addressing the underlying causes of crime, providing supervised services to keep families intact and applying long-standing principals of harm reduction to people suffering from addiction, mental illness and extreme poverty.

The starting point for all of this is to accept that in addressing crime, one size never fits all. A strong sense of our shared humanity also helps. As one Oregon district attorney once said to us, crime victims and criminal defendants both have parents, spouses, children or other people who love them.

At Partnership for Safety and Justice, one of our core beliefs is that crime victims and people who have committed crimes have a shared interest in transformation of the criminal justice system. The point of our justice system should be to reduce the harm caused by harmful situations.

I do not know the Hammonds, but I am glad that they can now return to their family, their friends and their land. I hope that whatever brought them into conflict with federal officials tasked with protecting public lands -- people who have loved ones of their own -- can be resolved to meet their needs and responsibilities without a repetition of the events that set the criminal justice system in motion.

That is the kind of transformation that we all need.

-- Andy Ko is the executive director of Partnership for Safety and Justice, which is based in Northeast Portland.

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