The state of Oregon now spends about as much taxpayer money locking up 13,401 inmates as it does to educate 438,000 college students, with prison spending expected to soon exceed higher-education funding, the Oregonian reported April 22.

Oregon's prison population has been rapidly expanding since 1994, when voters approved Measure 11, a ballot initiative calling for long mandatory-minimum sentences for violent crimes. Over the next two years, prison spending is expected to increase 19 percent, to $1.66 billion, $174 million more than the state spends on higher education.

Dave Frohnmayer, president of the University of Oregon, says there is a "growing crisis in Oregon and nationally at the intersection of corrections systems and other public priorities."

The tougher sentences have corresponded with a decline in violent crime in Oregon, although the trend has been leveling off. Some experts see the law of diminishing returns at work, with the majority of the state's career criminals already incarcerated. "Analysts are nearly unanimous in their conclusion that continued growth in incarceration will prevent considerably fewer, if any, crimes -- and at substantially greater cost to taxpayers," noted the Vera Institute of Justice in a recent report.

That finding is echoed by research in Oregon showing that the cost-benefit of locking up new inmates has fallen from 30 crimes prevented per prisoner in 1994 to 10 crimes prevented per prisoner in 2005. Analysts say that each $1 spent on incarceration now yields just $1.03 worth of benefits to society in Oregon.

The head of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, which compiled the report, said that lawmakers need to find other ways to fight crime. "That's what we gave up to build the prisons, and I see this [legislative] session as a time to take advantage of that, to try to treat their addictions and change their thinking," said Craig Prins. "I think there's evidence it's a good investment."

Oregon lawmakers have cut funding for addiction treatment programs in recent years, but the governor's 2007-09 budget plan calls for more funding of addiction and mental-health programs. "This is the first time in probably the last 10 years that we've been able to invest and make a commitment to treatment issues in the corrections system and the juvenile-justice system," said Joseph O'Leary, a public safety advisor to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Meanwhile, however, the man who backed the original Measure 11, Kevin Mannix, is gathering signatures for another ballot question that would expand the list of crimes subject to mandatory minimums, including drug and property crimes.

"Measure 11 cost money, but it didn't blow the budget," Mannix said. "When it comes to property crimes, my assertion is that the cost of not incarcerating offenders will be more than the cost of incarceration ... We all pay it through hidden costs and insurance, and the poor pay the most."

Criminal-justice expert William Spelman of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas said the effectiveness of mandatory sentencing "depends mostly on who you're putting in that prison bed."

"If you are putting away drug offenders or burglars, it's almost certainly a waste of taxpayer money," he said. "If they're armed robbers, maybe it does make sense."