Invest in communities, not policing and jails.
We ask the police and the courts to solve all of our problems. That’s ineffective, costly, and cruel.
Defund police and prosecution.
Good money after bad.
Washington County’s 2020-21 budget relies far too heavily on police and prosecution. For instance, it expands the district attorney’s advertising budget to $14,000 from last year’s $4000. Three years ago the DA’s advertising budget totaled $62. The budget adds an additional $1.5m from the general fund to fill the jail at a time when a decreased jail population is necessary to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 in a crowded space. Sheriff’s deputies are wasting money on “pretext stops,” using a guise of a traffic stop to run a drug-sniff dog around a car, in a way that a recent study showed disproportionately harasses Latinx members of our community.
A bloated district attorney’s office.
Salaries for prosecutors in Washington County are twice the salaries for their counterparts on the public defense side—a margin that is a huge outlier compared to most communities across the country. The reason a mid-career deputy district attorney here makes $129,000 compared to $69,000 for a public defender is that defense is funded by a state agency whereas the Washington County Board of Commissioners sets the budgets and pay for DAs.
Social solutions.
We are relying too heavily on policing, and the blunt threat of prison, to solve problems like addiction, mental illness, and homelessness through so-called alternative court programs like drug court and mental health court. Washington County would be better served by dramatically cutting the police and prosecution budget and reallocating such funds to directly aid our community members through housing assistance or mental health services—the latter of which the county’s 2020-21 budget cuts by 7%. These social problems can be addressed cheaper and more effectively through early intervention rather than waiting for arrests on the back end.
In Washington County, WCJI joins other community groups in calling to a halt to any additional funding for the sheriff’s office until accountability and community-responsiveness measures are in place. See more details here.
Tell your representatives how you want your money spent.
Track meetings of these and other Washington County governing bodies in our Google Calendar.
Washington County Board of Commissioners.
Funds Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Washington County District Attorney’s Office.
Kathryn Harrington
Board Chair
Nafisa Fai
Beaverton and Aloha
Pam Treece
Cedar Hills, Bethany, and northeast county
Roy Rogers
Tigard, Tualatin, and south county
Jerry Willey
Hillsboro and points west
Hillsboro City Council.
Funds Hillsboro Police Department.
Steve Callaway
Mayor
Beach Pace
Rick Van Beveren
Ward 1 - Northeast Hillsboro
Kyle Allen
Anthony Martin
Ward 2 - East Central Hillsboro
Olivia Alcaire
Gina Roletto
Ward 3 - Downtown, South, and West Hillsboro
Beaverton City Council.
Funds Beaverton Police Department.
Lacey Beaty
Mayor
Laura Mitchell
Council President
Allison Tivnon
Mark Fagin
Nadia Hasan
Marc San Soucie
Councilors at large