PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — Dozens of people have agreed to deflection rather than going to jail for possessing small amounts of hard drugs in the first two months of Multnomah County’s new program.
The program created an option for people to sign up for deflection that aims to direct people to treatment instead of jail, coinciding with the passage of HB 4002 . The re-introduction of criminal penalties for people possessing small amounts of hard drugs in Oregon brought with it an option for individual counties to start deflection programs to help people with addiction.
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The county said from Sept. 1 through the end of October, 91 people initiated deflection. That represents 20% more deflections than what Multnomah County predicted for that period of time, and 40% of deflections statewide, county officials said.
During that same period of time, Portland police said they’ve made more than 220 drug-related encounters that could have led to arrests. Of those, 91 were deflected and 130 were taken into custody, mostly for outstanding warrants or thefts.