An estimated 200 nonviolent offenders will stay in prison longer than expected after the Oregon Department of Corrections abruptly suspended treatment programs last month.

The department halted the programs – mostly delivered by outside contractors – to limit the number of people coming in and out of the state’s prisons because of the new coronavirus.

The six-month treatments programs serve a relatively small number of inmates each year and come with an incentive of early release. The agency says about 580 minimum security prisoners complete the programs each year.

The agency on Friday acknowledged that the move means inmates at three prisons – Columbia River in Portland, Coffee Creek in Wilsonville and Powder River in Baker City – will stay behind bars for weeks or even months longer than planned.

Dawnell Meyer, the agency’s behavioral health services administrator, said the implications of the agency’s decision on inmates and “the overall institution environment.” In an email in response to questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive, Meyer said administrators tried to keep the programs running, but all options would have required prisoners “to be in close proximity with one another.”

Inmates who successfully complete the drug and alcohol treatment programs typically see their sentences reduced by up to 20 percent. People convicted of Measure 11 offenses -- violent crimes that carry mandatory minimum sentences – do not qualify for early release.

The development comes as the number of inmates with the virus slowly rises and advocates for prisoners press state officials to do more to address the threat of the pandemic behind bars.

Among their proposals: release inmates, including those nearing the end of their sentences.

The Department of Corrections has all but acknowledged that it is impossible to follow social distancing guidance in its prisons. In a report prepared this month for Gov. Kate Brown, corrections officials said they would need to release about 5,800 inmates – about 40 percent of the population – to enable prisons to adhere to the public health advice.

The number of prisoners in Oregon who have tested positive for the virus is on the rise, albeit slowly. As of Friday, 13 inmates in three prisons tested positive.

Another dozen employees also have confirmed cases of the illness.

Aliza Kaplan, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and director of Director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic, said the state should release inmates as planned and come up with a way for them to continue treatment on the outside.

Kaplan called the elimination of that avenue of early release “a travesty.”

“People are scared for their lives and they are keeping them in there longer,” she said.

Joseph Tietz, executive director of the Pathfinder Network, one of the contractors that provides prison treatment programs, said he proposed alternative ways to continue remotely but corrections officials turned him down.

“These are women who have come to the tail end of their sentences,” he said. “Be magnanimous and let people out early, especially those people who have family and a place to go.”

Vanessa Sherrod, 39, of Salem got out of prison in December after finishing the treatment program at Coffee Creek. She said successfully completing the course trimmed four months off her sentence for property crime convictions.

She said she left behind women who were on pace to get out early as well. Now they’ll get out two to six months from now.

“There is no real fear about what would happen if you release these ladies into the community,” she said. “This is part of a solution that should be happening right now."

Christina Cobb, 43, said she was among those slated for early release. She entered one of the treatment programs on Nov. 18 and expected to get out May 18 -- three months early.

Now she expects to complete her original sentence, which ends in August. She is serving time for a robbery conviction out of Washington County.

She said her disappointment is compounded by stress of seeing her treatment program come to a sudden end. She said she went from highly structured days in a small-group setting to general population overnight.

“It’s extremely traumatizing,” she said. “I am losing handfuls of hair.”

“I have time to make up for with my family,” she said. “If I get sick and don’t get that chance because of my choices being taken away, that will be life changing and devastating for me.”

Elizabeth Seaborne, 51, who was convicted of aggravated theft out of Lane County, said she entered treatment last fall and expected to get out this month.

On the day the program was suspended, she had 31 days left to go.

“I was at the end of my program,” she said. “I did all my classes.”

Now she will get out on June 22.

“It’s been traumatic but I have tried to find all the positive I can and use the skills I have learned in here,” she said.

Seaborne said the news was harder on her 13-year-old daughter.

“She had been counting down the days.”

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie

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