The sheriff's office of Josephine County, Ore., released 39 of its jail inmates this week because the county just couldn't pay for their upkeep anymore. The "funding predicament" reported by Undersheriff Don Fasching was due to a sharp drop in the county's share of federal timber revenue due to logging cutbacks in national forests to protect northern spotted owl and salmon and because voters turned down a $12 million levy to fill the gap left by the government-provided subsidy's expiration of that revenue which ran out last year.
Undersheriff Fasching said those inmates released were in jail for drug
crimes, minor assaults, burglary, identity theft and probation
violation. Jail Commander Vicki Smith said, "We did keep the worst of
the worst." Fasching added, "We are concerned for public safety." Applications for gun permits have skyrocketed, according to the Associated Press.
The AP also reports sheriff's patrols, the district attorney's office, parole and probation supervision and juvenile justice departments all face similar cuts as budgets need to be balanced countywide. Klamath and Lane counties in Oregon have done likewise.
2 comments:
so by saying "the worst of the worst" you are implying the young men and women(kids) that have drug and alchohol related offenses are bad people, just not the worst! their issues are a product of this society wich pay's your salery and that you are a part of! not to mention all the bad cops that never see a day in jail! you are nothing more than a hippocrate, trying to play on the insecure voters minds! is that even part of your job to bad mouth the inmates? some of those inmates may even be innocent! and some will correct their mistakes and go on to lead productive lives, inspite of the stereo type suppression ignorant people like you impose upon them!
Oregon's prison and jail system seems to be broken. I know commercial bail bonds is not a genie in a bottle solution, but I think some budget problems could be solved by allowing it. Illinois has similar budget issues and they don't allow bail bonds either. Maybe just a correlational coincidence though.
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