OREGON GOVERNOR: PRISON SENTENCES TOO LONG

Oregon Governor Kitzhaber says prison sentences are too expensive, and he blames conservative tough-on-crime initiatives.  Kitzhaber says Oregon officials and legislators have to have the ‘wisdom and courage’ to ignore the intent of the voter-passed measures, and reduce sentences for  criminals.  Kitzhaber says some criminals would be better ‘punished’ by being set free and monitored by  electronic bracelets, like Lindsey Lohan—others, he said, should be ‘punished’ by getting free taxpayer-paid drug and alcohol treatment, even though studies have shown a huge relapse rate among mandatory drug or alcohol treatment graduates.  Kitzhaber says such decades-old liberal ideas  would be less costly, and keep Oregon safer than longer prison sentences.  He made the remarks at the first meeting of his hand-picked “Sentencing Reform Committee”.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.