Oregon FY24 SJSP

The Oregon Statistical Analysis Center (SAC), which is housed at the Criminal Justice Commission, proposes two projects in its 2024 State Justice Statistics grant application. First, for its 2024 core-capacity building project, the SAC requests funding for activities that are closely aligned with the 2023 core-capacity building project area “Increasing access to statistical data.” In brief, the Oregon SAC proposes using SJS 2024 core-capacity building grant funds to analyze and report on the long-range misdemeanor conviction trends in the state. Entitled “Oregon Misdemeanor Conviction Trends,” this proposed project is timely, as it will correspond with the state’s need to collect and share information that informs policy decisions and impacts of misdemeanor charge and conviction trends. The Oregon SAC will release the “Oregon Misdemeanor Convictions Trends” report by end of 2025. Second, the SAC proposes using funds for a special-emphasis project to conduct an analysis to examine the initial impact of newly funded deflection programs at the county level. This will provide county level results to show the magnitude impact to arrests, charges, and convictions for drug enforcement misdemeanors of drug possession offenses. In addition, the project will further expand the capacity of the Oregon SAC to compile, analyze, and report on initial deflection program outcomes. This SJS 2024 project entitled, “Impact of Deflection Programs on Drug Enforcement Misdemeanor Criminal Cases” will provide relevant and timely outcome analyses for individuals with criminal justice system contact for user amounts of controlled substances. Further, criminal justice leaders recognize that the impact of newly formed deflection programs are an important and previously understudied area of concern in Oregon. Importantly, this project will improve the state’s understanding of the impact of policy decisions on criminal justice outcomes. This project also meets BJS national priorities and will contribute to overcoming the challenges of consistent, useful, and relevant drug possession outcome data. Finally, the proposed project will produce a publication detailing the impact of deflection programs on criminal justice outcomes at the county level. The publication will be made publicly available on the CJC website and will provide data and trend analysis to criminal justice stakeholders, legislators, and the public.