Strategic Assessment of OCE/DOC Work and Related Programs Phase II

In 1994, Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved Measure 17, a ballot initiative that created new requirements for the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) to operate prison inmate “work and on-the-job training programs.” (Oregon Constitution: Article 1, Section 41).

To help implement Measure 17, in 1999 the Oregon Legislature subsequently established Oregon Corrections Enterprises (OCE) as a semi-independent agency, with broad authority to create and operate inmate work and training programs on a financially self-supporting basis. These statutes were crafted to be consistent with Measure 17’s Constitutional mandates that the inmate programs “be run in a business-like fashion;” that “income generated by OCE prison work programs be kept in a separate account;” and that most expenditures be “exempt from the legislative appropriations process.”