Oregon Business Magazine’s April 2008 cover story, "PRISONTOWN MYTH: The promise of prosperity hasn’t come true for Oregon's rural communities" exposes the truth about the economic impact that the 1990s prison expansion has had on Oregon’s rural communities.

The fight to stop Kevin Mannix’s proposed new mandatory minimum sentences just took a step forward but also got much more complicated.The February legislative session ended late Friday night and on the last day they referred a measure to the November ballot challenging Mannix’s property crime measure. The legislative measure, which has yet to be given an official number for the ballot, has a superseding clause which means it cancels out Mannix's Mandatory Minimum Measure if it gets more votes. This summary lays out the differences between Mannix's Mandatory Minimum Measure and the legislative measure.