ACTION ALERT!

“What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.” — luminary author and educator, bell hooks

Together, Unite Oregon members and supporters are imagining an Oregon filled with healing and thriving communities, not more jails and prisons.

All of you have actively supported this vision by sending thousands of phone calls, emails, and action alerts to our legislators.

We need you to take action again today because many of our lawmakers cannot yet envision the just, equitable, and caring Oregon we could create together if all of us could imagine it and work for it.

Your engagement in our state’s democratic processes has made it harder for Democratic legislators to get the votes they need on HB 4002 from Democrats alone. So they’re working with Republican legislators to get their votes.

This means that the upcoming amendments to HB 4002 will be worse than before.

What we have learned:

  • HB 4002’s impacts will severe, harsh, and create more suffering across Oregon, no different from what the regressive ballot measure would do: In practice, HB 4002 won’t be much different from the regressive, harsh policies pushed by the so-called “Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110” interest group, which is led by the former head of Oregon prisons and funded by billionaires.

  • Geography-based access to justice is no justice at all: Counties and police will no longer be required to offer treatment to people instead of jail; providing treatment will be optional. What this means is that someone addicted to drugs in one county may be arrested and left to suffer and potentially die in jail, while a person in the next county over might be offered access to treatment services instead of jail.

  • This bill will harm low-income people who can’t afford an attorney and victims of crime: Lawmakers are continuing to ignore the fact that there will be no public defense attorneys available any time soon for the likely thousands of new cases that recriminalization will inject into the criminal system. This will impact the many criminal cases before our courts, and it will harm low-income people who cannot afford an attorney and victims of crime too whose cases won’t be able to move forward.