PSU Magazine Winter 2004

nation. The reform is projected to save the state $41 million this year. The New York Legislature in 2003 passed laws that enable inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes to earn certificates for good behavior. An estimated 1,185 inmates a year will be released early this way, saving the state an estimated $21 million. Jim Bartlett, retiring superintendent of the Oregon State Correctional Insti– tution in Salem, says one of the prob– lems with Measure 11 inmates is they have little incentive to improve their behavior because, unlike other prison– ers, there's no way for them to earn credits that will reduce their sentence. "Maybe thats where Measure 11 needs to be tweaked a little bit," he says. "Maybe that's not palatable for the community, but as someone whos been involved with the management of prisons, I see a value in it." r., regon is doing some things to .... keep prisons from bursting capacity. For example, the legislature created a boot camp program for drug 8 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2004 and alcohol offenders, the successful completion of which allows prisoners to reduce their sentences. "There are a number of responses society can make to crime. Incarcera– tion is just one of them," says deHaan. J:I nother approach is to keep ~ people out of prison in the first place. Claudia Black '92 is associate director of PSUs Criminal Justice Research Institute and also chair of the Children of Incarcerated Parents Pro– ject, which supports programs that teach parenting skills to mothers and fathers in and out of prison. Black cites some disturbing statis– tics: 20,000 children in Oregon have a parent in prison. Forty-one percent of children in foster care in Oregon have a parent who is a convicted felon . Children who have had a parent in prison are many times more likely than other kids to become incarcerated themselves. Many of the inmate parents Blacks project deals \vith are uneducated about how to parent their children and had poor parent models or no model at all during their own childhoods. Black says she is hopeful that the pro– ject will break the cycle of crime and conviction that affects some families generation afLer generation. "What we're trying to do is provide support for the kids so ultimately we reduce the need for prisons," she says. ra !early, deHaan sees the solution liiil in programs that address and correct criminal behavior-presumably the idea behind ''corrections"-rather than simple throw-away-the-key punishment. "Our reliance on one-size-fits-all incarceration is not sustainable in the long term-not when you spend more to put someone in prison than it costs to send someone to Harvard for a year," he says. D (Jolin Kirkland, a Porlland freelance writer, wrote the articles "Wine: lt's in the Dirt" and "School's Out Forever?" in the Jall 2003 PSU Magazine.)