Examining Equity in the Recriminalization of Drug Possession in Oregon
Per House Bill 4002 (2024)
PCS Arrests and Drug Overdose Deaths Over Time
Between 2018 and 2026, several significant events have impacted Oregon’s criminal justice, public health, and behavioral health systems. The chart below illustrates how these events have influenced arrests for possession of a controlled substance (PCS) and drug overdose deaths over time.
Early 2019 - The amount of fentanyl in the illicit drug supply in Oregon begins to increase.
March 2020 - COVID-19 emergency restrictions adversely affect employment, housing, and social connections.
November 2020 - Oregon voters approve Ballot Measure 110 (BM110), reclassifying possession of user amounts of controlled substances from a misdemeanor to a Class E violation (the change goes into effect February 1, 2021).
September 2024 - Possession of user amounts of controlled substances is “recriminalized” as a drug enforcement misdemeanor with the passage of House Bill 4002 (HB4002).
This report, required by HB4002 and subsequently House Bill 3069 (HB3069), investigates how recriminalization may be affecting different communities in Oregon. We focus on race and ethnicity and include summary statistics by gender and region.
Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Deflection Data Sources
The most recently available data were used to investigate equity in
the context of PCS recriminalization.
The chart below shows two paths a person may take when facing a PCS
crime and the data sources CJC uses to characterize their progression
along each path.
Click a shape to view definitions and learn more about the data used in this report.
Arrest
| Step Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Arrest | Unless otherwise specified, an arrest in this report refers to a single arrest between September 1, 2024 and August 31, 2025, of an individual who is only charged with a PCS crime. This excludes arrests that include a PCS charge but also charges for other crimes, including low-level crimes or violent crimes. Arrests with additional charges are excluded in this report because each county determines eligibility criteria for their deflection programs, and many limit eligibility to people with PCS-only arrests. A person may be arrested more than once in this 12-month period. |
| Case Filed | Cases shown in this report are limited to PCS-only cases unless otherwise specified. |
| Conviction | Convictions shown in this report are limited to PCS-only convictions unless otherwise specified. While each step from arrest to conviction is limited to PCS-only, it can be true that someone initially arrested with multiple (non-PCS) charges, who would not be counted in arrests for this report, could end up only being convicted for a PCS charge. |
| Supervision | People admitted to DOC-funded community supervision with only a PCS conviction These may include new probation sentences or conditional discharge. |
Deflection
| Step Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Deflection Event | A deflection event is the when a person is referred to a deflection program; for this report, this event must occur between September 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025. Individuals may have entered deflection more than once in that time period. Records missing a valid referral date have been removed. |
| Qualify | A person who has been referred to deflection qualifies to enter a deflection program if they meet their county’s qualification criteria. These criteria may include things like county residency and criminal history requirements. |
| Enter | A person who has qualified for behavioral health deflection chooses to enter the program. |
| Complete | To complete a behavioral health deflection program a person must satisfied the county program’s completion criteria. |
Data Sources Used in this Report
| Data | Description |
|---|---|
| Law Enforcement Data System (LEDS) | LEDS contains criminal histories and investigative files from local and state law enforcement agencies. Fingerprinting is required for arrests. Administered by the Oregon State Police, LEDS includes linkages to state and national agency crime statistics. The LEDS program also performs record validation, quality control, user training, and audits to ensure accuracy and compliance with state and national standards. |
| Behavioral Health Deflection Program Data (BHD) | Behavioral health deflection data are collected and entered by county deflection program providers, overseen and assisted by CJC’s partners at Oregon Health Science University (OHSU). De-identified data submitted by programs detail the progress of deflection participants statewide from referral (often, but not always, via contact with law enforcement) through program completion or exit. |
| Odyssey Case Management System | Odyssey is Oregon Judicial Department’s statewide platform for circuit court case data. It contains information about case filings and dispositions, hearings, and case-level outcomes. These data make it possible to track trends in criminal, civil, and specialty court cases. |
| Department of Corrections Data | Oregon Department of Corrections provides data related to adults in custody or on supervision by community corrections. This source includes information related to convicted crimes and sentencing, as well as sociodemographic characteristics. |
Statewide Counts Summarized by Race
Criminal justice system and behavioral health deflection program events by race and ethnicity from September 2024 to December 2025 are summarized in the tables below.
| Arrests | Cases Filed | Convictions | Supervision | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIAN | 54 | 56 | 19 | 14 |
| Asian | 25 | 39 | 8 | 14 |
| Black | 151 | 173 | 40 | 56 |
| Hispanic | 316 | 446 | 103 | 169 |
| Unknown/Other | 27 | 156 | 12 | 10 |
| White | 2,177 | 2,709 | 754 | 1,217 |
| Total | 2,750 | 3,579 | 936 | 1,480 |
Please visit CJC’s PCS Dashboard for additional information.
| Deflection Events | Qualified | Agreed to Enter | Completed Program | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIAN | 98 | 88 | 70 | 20 |
| Asian | 13 | 12 | 8 | 3 |
| Black | 136 | 125 | 101 | 25 |
| Hispanic | 160 | 127 | 99 | 22 |
| Unknown/Other | 607 | 481 | 199 | 47 |
| White | 2,070 | 1,744 | 1,408 | 363 |
| Total | 3,084 | 2,577 | 1,885 | 480 |
Please visit CJC’s Behavioral Health Deflection Dashboard for additional information.
Outcomes: Arrests & Deflections
Criminal justice and behavioral health deflection outcomes should be proportional to the needs of a given community. To approximate community needs, we compare arrests and deflection program participation to population; to historical and contemporary arrests not impacted by HB4002; and to measures of community health, including homelessness and overdose deaths.
Arrests in Context
At this time, arrests for PCS-only are the most straightforward metric for examining criminal justice involvement resulting from possession of user amounts of illicit drugs. Each step after the arrest introduces additional complexity and doesn’t allow for direct comparison to the previous step. These additional steps may be examined more thoroughly in future reports.
Although concise, a population comparison may be a poor reflection of the impact of HB4002 because it fails to account for the broader context of the criminal justice system which, for a variety of reasons, has historically disproportionately affected different racial and ethnic groups.
Click the tabs to view PCS-only arrests by demographic group compared to population, other types of arrests, and community health indicators.
Population
A basic measure of proportionality is the number of PCS-only arrests among population groups, based on the U.S. Census.
This chart shows the number of PCS-only arrests per 100,000 people, based on U.S. Census population estimates by race and ethnicity. Black people were arrested at the highest rate for PCS-only crimes between September 2024 and December 2025 (112 arrest per 100,000 people), while the Asian group was arrested at the lowest rate (9 arrests per 100,000 people).
Comparisons are shown for regions and gender based on the coordinated care organization (CCO) service areas identified by the Oregon Health Authority. Due to low counts, only ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ arrests are included.
View counties in each region in the Appendix Table.
In most regions, men are two to three times more likely to be arrested for PCS than women. The Southwest Coast region has the highest rate of arrests for men while Northwest Rural group has the lowest arrest rate for men.
Arrests
PCS-only arrests after implementation of HB4002 are compared to PCS-only arrests in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and implementation of BM110. PCS-only arrests after implementation of HB4002 are also compared to non-violent felony arrests (between September 1, 2024 and August 31, 2025), which are not directly impacted by HB4002.
Click the tabs to view PCS-only arrests after recriminalization compared to 2019 Arrests, to Felony Arrests, and to each of these on a proportional scale.
2019 Arrests
In this chart, the number of arrests for only a PCS charge in the year following implementation of HB4002 is lower for every racial group than the number of comparable arrests in 2019, the last year unaffected by COVID-19, BM110, and HB4002. To help show whether this drop in arrests is proportional for all groups, we put the two time periods on the same scale on the proportional plot in the next tab.
2019 - Proportional
Computing standardized proportions involves setting the group with the highest values in each category to 1 and the group with the lowest values to 0 to compare relative rates among all other groups.
Lower values in 2024-2025 mean arrests for that group dropped more compared to 2019 than for the groups with the highest (White) and lowest (Asian) number of arrests.
The proportional comparison between pre-BM110 and post-HB4002 PCS-only arrests shows fairly consistent proportional representation among all racial and ethnic groups. PCS-only arrests among Hispanic or Latino and American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) are proportionally higher post-HB4002 compared to pre-BM110. Conversely, PCS-only arrests among Black individuals are proportionally lower post-HB4002 compared to pre-BM110.
Felony Arrests
This chart shows arrests for nonviolent felonies compared to PCS-only arrests after recriminalization. This may help contextualize that other influences, outside of PCS recriminalization, affect criminal arrests over time. Nonviolent felonies (e.g., car theft, some theft and some burglary charges), are not impacted by HB4002 directly, and are less likely to be peripherally impacted than lower-level crimes like trespassing or disorderly conduct. The plot above shows that nonviolent felony arrests have the same trend across racial and ethnic groups as PCS-only arrests, but are overall far more frequent.
Felony - Proportional
Computing standardized proportions involves setting the group with the highest values to 1 and the group with the lowest values to 0, in order to compare relative rates among all other groups.
Lower values for PCS arrests mean there were proportionally fewer PCS-only arrests than non-violent felony arrests for that group than for the groups with the highest (White) and lowest (Asian) number of arrests.
The comparison between PCS-only arrests and non-violent felony arrests shows that PCS-only arrests among American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) are proportionally higher compared to non-violent felony arrests. Conversely, both Black and Hispanic or Latino individuals have proportionally fewer PCS-only arrests compared to non-violent felony arrests.
Community Health
Deflection programs are, by definition, a partnership between law enforcement, service providers, and clients. Law enforcement often provides the initial contact to initiate deflection, and the criminal justice consequences of an arrest for PCS are meant to serve as an incentive to enter and complete behavioral health programs. Ideally, these consequences are experienced by each community in proportion to the needs of that community. To examine this proportionality, we show two community health metrics that may be proxies for level of need: the number of people who are homeless, and the number of people who, in the most recently available data, lost their lives due to an overdose.
Click the tabs to view PCS-only arrests after recriminalization compared to the number of people experiencing homelessness, overdose deaths, and to each of these on a proportional scale.
Homelessness
Over 80% of behavioral health deflection participants were unsheltered or in unstable housing at the time they entered a deflection program. This suggests a particularly acute need for deflection services among the homeless community and a strong relationship between homelessness and the law enforcement encounters that initiate deflection (over 85% of all deflection events are initiated by law enforcement).
Homelessness - Proportional
Computing standardized proportions involves setting the group with the highest values to 1 and the group with the lowest values to 0, in order to compare relative differences among all other groups.
Lower PCS-only arrest values mean there were proportionally fewer PCS arrests than people who were homeless in 2024 for that group than for the groups with the highest (White) and lowest (Asian) number of arrests and homelessness.
The proportional comparison of homelessness to PCS-only arrests shows that arrests among Black individuals are higher than the community health need suggested by the number of people experiencing homelessness. Conversely, Hispanic or Latino individuals experience slightly more homelessness, and American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) experience significantly more homelessness, proportionally, than arrests for PCS only.
Overdose
Overdose deaths are perhaps the most direct measure of a community’s need for intervention and services. The chart above shows the number of fatal overdoses compared to PCS arrests after recriminalization. Each racial and ethnic group has more arrests than overdoses, but the overall trend between the two measures is similar.
Overdose - Proportional
Computing standardized proportions involves setting the group with the highest values to 1 and the group with the lowest values to 0, in order to compare relative differences among all groups.
Lower PCS-only arrest values mean there were proportionally fewer PCS-only arrests than people who died of an overdose for that group than for the groups with the highest (White) and lowest (Asian) number of arrests and overdose deaths.
The proportional comparison of overdose deaths to PCS-only arrests shows that arrests among Hispanic or Latino individuals are higher than the community health need suggested by overdose deaths. Conversely, American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) experience proportionally more overdose deaths than arrests for PCS only.
Deflections in Context
Considering equity in the context of deflection involves examining the degree to which the services provided through state funding are reaching different communities in proportion to their need. Another element is whether the programs keep people engaged to complete the program and avoid criminal justice involvement.
Click the tabs to view behavioral health deflection rates and participant progress.
Population
Behavioral health deflection rates have a similar overall pattern as PCS-only arrest rates. Black individuals engage in deflection at the highest rate relative to the population. American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) also exhibit a high number of deflection events, especially in proportion to the arrest rate for this group (also see the Progression tab).
Comparisons in the chart below are shown for gender and regions based on the coordinated care organization (CCO) service areas identified by the Oregon Health Authority. Due to low counts, only ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ arrests are included.
View counties in each region in the Appendix Table.
Men are more likely to be referred to deflection relative to their population in all regions than women; however, in most regions the difference between deflection referral rates for men and women is smaller than the difference between the PCS-only arrest rates.
Progression
In this chart, a value of 1 would mean every person from the previous step progressed to the current step. For example, a value of 1 for ‘Qualified’ would mean every person who had a deflection referral qualified for deflection. A value greater than 1 is only possible for the first step, and would mean more people were referred for deflection than were arrested for PCS.
This chart shows the rate at which each racial and ethnic group reaches a given step compared to the number from the previous step. ‘Deflection Event’ is the number of people who were referred to deflection compared to the number of people arrested for a PCS-only charge; ‘Qualified’ is the number of people who qualified compared to the number with a deflection event, and ‘Entered’ is the number who chose to enter the program compared to the number who qualified.
American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) have the highest rate of deflection referral compared to arrest. It is important to note that the numbers among this group are low, so this difference may lessen in the future when sample sizes increase. White and Black individuals are referred to deflection at about the same rate as being arrested. Among Hispanic or Latino and Asian individuals, there are about half as many deflection events as arrests.
HB4002 Drug Delivery Enhancement
HB4002 made changes to the Oregon Revised Statutes for delivery of illicit drugs. The changes increase the crime category of delivery charges if the alleged crime takes place near a treatment facility, shelter, or public park. The statute change went into effect in April 2024. Since then there has been no perceivable change in the number of convictions with these enhanced crime categories. The table below shows enhanced delivery convictions, which are those with a crime category of 5 or 7, from 2015 to 2025.
| Year | Convictions |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 30 |
| 2016 | 28 |
| 2017 | 54 |
| 2018 | 33 |
| 2019 | 25 |
| 2020 | 14 |
| 2021 | 32 |
| 2022 | 48 |
| 2023 | 34 |
| 2024 | 35 |
| 2025 | 32 |