EPD Chief Chris Skinner examines a map of Eugene’s different districts. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)
In November 2023, the Lane County District Attorney’s office announced it would be ending its pause from prosecuting low-level crimes. The announcement stated that it had hired back 15 attorneys, allowing crimes that were previously being placed on a “no-file” list to now be prosecuted.
For over a year beginning in July 2022, the LCDA’s office did not prosecute low-level crimes such as trespassing, first-degree criminal mischief and theft due to staffing shortages. This frequently led to the Eugene Police Department using its limited staff to arrest people on low-level crimes, only for them to be released due to the DA’s office not being able to prosecute.
“[LCDA] had a terrible turnover problem beginning in 2021 continuing through 2022, where 15 lawyers out of 24 in the Criminal Division resigned,” Lane County District Attorney Patty Perlow said. “Every time someone left, their caseload had to be assumed by the other lawyers who remained and it became untenable to just keep dumping more and more cases on the lawyers that were remaining.” Perlow cited this as the main reason for halting low-level crime prosecution.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Parosa said that the mass exodus of lawyers increased caseloads and longer work hours.
“[Lane County lawyers] were overworked and overwhelmed and decided to go to jobs that either paid more money or ultimately required a little less of their time,” Parosa said.
According to Perlow, in addition to a significant pay increase, new legislation in spring 2023 put Oregon Deputy District Attorneys into the Public Employees Retirement System benefits program, granting DDAs retirement pensions, among other benefits. Perlow said the new legislation has helped bring in experienced prosecutors, ultimately allowing LCDA to begin prosecuting low-level crimes once again.
While the effects the LCDA’s announcement will have on jail inmate numbers are still too early to tell, Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner expressed optimism.
“It’s absolutely critical, having [the DA’s office] fully staffed is critical to a healthy criminal justice system,” Skinner said.
15 jail beds for Oregon’s second most populated city: “We want the right 15 people”
Eugene –– Lane County’s largest city –– has only been allotted space to hold 15 offenders from Eugene at any given time. These beds serve all of Eugene’s 175,000 residents.
According to Skinner, who described beds in the Lane County Jail as a “static resource,” LCJ has long struggled with a lack of capacity to hold offenders. This forces jail employees into a constant triage process of deciding who to hold and who to release.
“Most of the time there is no jail time at all for low-level offenders,” Skinner said. “If we only have 15 beds at Lane County Jail for our misdemeanor crimes then we want the right 15 people in jail. Most of those 15 people are more violent misdemeanors.”
Skinner suggested that the lack of capacity, and subsequent little to no punishment for low-level offenders, could be to blame for higher crime recidivism.
“It [no jail time] certainly doesn’t deter [recidivism]. When you engage in crime and you make a victim out of somebody else, you get arrested. There’s no sanctions and then you’re back out doing your thing, and so it certainly doesn’t deter crime,” Skinner said.
Even though LCJ is located in Eugene, the city of Eugene is strictly allocated 15 beds to ensure space for every other arresting agency in Lane County.
“We [LCJ] have a contract with the city of Eugene and they essentially rent 15 beds from us,” LCJ Lieutenant Jason Moore said. Moore said that should LCJ reach its capacity, it will then give arrested individuals a priority code; individuals with the lowest code are then given a court date and released pending trial.
According to a study conducted by the Oregon Judicial Branch, just one-third of the 740,000 people currently held in jails around the country have been convicted of a crime. People who have not been convicted and have been denied or can not afford bail await trial and are unable to work. They are also removed from their families and communities as they await trial.
The practice of removing people from society during pre-trial detention has been shown to significantly increase the likelihood that they will re-commit a crime once they are released, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
To combat pre-trial injustice, many states and jurisdictions have adopted a form of Risk Assessment Tools. RATs are used to determine the safety risk or flight risk an individual poses and help to decide whether they are related pending trial and if so what pretrial condition they must follow. Lane County is one of six counties in Oregon to use a form of an RAT for determining pretrial release.
According to Moore, when an individual is booked into LCJ, they are given a 84-question risk assessment weighing multiple factors including:
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Charge Type (ie. mismendamor, felony, etc.)
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Criminal history
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Number of failure to appear listings on one’s record
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History of substance abuse
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Housing status
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Employment status
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Family support
The assessment, in combination with an interview between pretrial officers and the offender, produces a score used to determine the “risk level” of an individual. This score is used to dictate which offenders are released pending trial and which are held for pre-trial detention.
In June 2022, Oregon Senate Bill 48 eliminated the right to an immediate bail release, promoting “consistent, fair, and equitable justice practices across Oregon.” This effectively meant that offenders were no longer automatically entitled to a bail and required the use of further steps such as a risk assessment to determine pre-trial release. Historically the bail system has adversely affected low-income and unhoused individuals, who are less likely to be able to afford a cash bail.
By allowing individuals who could not previously afford bail to be released on their own recognizance, among other factors, SB 48 was ultimately advertised by Oregon lawmakers as a way to help the historical inequities in the traditional bail system. Lawmakers argued that SB 48 would ultimately make communities safer by determining who to hold in custody by public safety risk as opposed to socioeconomic status and ability to pay bail.
Nearly 50 years prior to SB 48 in 1975, Lane County progressively began their first bail reform measure: hiring their first pretrial release officer. As recognition for the need for bail reform grew over subsequent years, the program developed into the advanced pre-trial detention program Lane County employs today.
“We’ve [LCJ] already been doing it [pretrial services] for so many years that we’ve kind of perfected it here,” said Lt. Moore. “LCJ is now the model for the rest of the state when it comes to that kind of service inside the jail.”
LCJ uses several jail alternatives for offenders that are deemed to pose no public safety threat. The programs include a GPS monitoring program, a Community Service Program, a Sheriff’s Work Crew Program and Drug Court. Drug Court is used to help offenders with substance abuse disorder by providing treatment.
“There’s alternatives rather than coming into custody, that’s allowed us to kind of manipulate who stays here, so we are only keeping the folks that really need to stay in a locked facility,” Moore said. “By sending those other folks out on release agreements … we are seeing, I think it’s in the mid 80% success rate of them coming back to court.”
