What caused the violent crime drop of the last 20 years in Oregon?
Was it imprisonment, demography, the booming economy, or something else that caused the crime drop? There is little agreement among experts about what caused this drop, and no consensus about what the future will hold. Let me just offer a brief observation on the incarceration issue. In 1994, the people of Oregon passed mandatory minimum sentences for 16 violent crimes, and the legislature added other mandatory minimum sentences for other violent crimes after that. The dramatic Oregon violent crime drop coincides closely with the implementation of the mandatory minimum sentences that continue to today. In its 2007 Report to the Legislature, the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission stated, “Recent research indicates that incarceration significantly affects crime rates.” They explain how in 1994 for every criminal incarcerated for one year roughly 29 crimes were avoided, and that this rate has dropped to fewer than 11 crimes being avoided for every offender incarcerated by 2005. They said
