The city’s effective replacement for the now-defunct
Drug-Free Zones (DFZs) appears to be targeting black people for harsher
treatment by the judicial system—just as the DFZs did.
Of the 408 people now on the city’s Neighborhood Livability Crime
Enforcement Offender List (NLCEOL)—a list used to determine who
is diverted into a city program that couples felony charges with drug
treatment—214 are black, 177 are white, eight are Native
American, and eight are Hispanic. That racial breakdown comes from
attorney Chris O’Connor of Metropolitan Public Defenders, who
cross-referenced the city’s list of names with data showing suspects’
race.
Those statistics mean black people make up 52 percent of the list
while they comprise just six percent of Portland’s population.
Mayor Tom Potter sunset the DFZs last September after independent
statistical analysis showed African Americans were more likely to be
excluded from the zones than white people when they were arrested for
drug offenses. To fill a perceived gap left by the DFZs, City
Commissioner Randy Leonard secured funding last December to expand the
city’s five-year-old Service Coordination Team (SCT) effort. On April
15, the mayor also proposed funding the plan with an additional $1.3
million next year.
The SCT, which is the brainchild of central precinct cop Jeff Myers,
targets the top 35 offenders in downtown Portland, inner Northeast, and
inner Southeast Portland, on a monthly basis based on arrest statistics
(not convictions). Those people are known colloquially downtown as the
“dirty 30,” even though there are, in fact, 35 of them. Each month, the
names of the top 35 offenders, or “dirty 30,” are transferred to the
city’s master list, the NLCEOL, and those people are targeted for
special treatment by the district attorney’s office.
Once a person’s name is on the list, it never disappears, according
to sources familiar with the process. People on the list are
automatically charged by the DA with felonies, even for minor drug
arrests that would otherwise be charged as misdemeanors. After being
charged with a felony, listed defendants are offered drug treatment in
exchange for pleading guilty straight away through what’s known as an
“expedited plea.”
But those who go into the drug treatment program must live in a
Central City Concern housing center and go to an intensive outpatient
drug treatment program—according to those familiar with the
program, participants aren’t allowed to go anywhere else during
treatment—or be faced with a probation violation and the prospect
of six months in jail.
At least, that’s what the Mercury
has been able to piece
together about the program, based on conversations with
several
sources.
“There also continues to be a problem with a lack of specificity and
written procedures around this program,” says O’Connor. “And it’s hard
to find out who the actual decision-makers actually are. It’s not in
the police procedure manual or in the city’s code and charter, that’s
for sure.”
By contrast, people who are not on the list and who are arrested for
drug possession crimes are released immediately and either go to
community court, where they can do community service and get their
record expunged after a first conviction, or they’re diverted into the
county’s drug court program—where they can avoid a felony
conviction by staying clean for 18 months.
For some, that disparate treatment raises the same concerns about
racial profiling that originally led to the DFZs’ demise.
“I think the city needs to decide,” says O’Connor. “If they don’t
think there’s racial profiling going on, then they need to seriously
address why over half the people on their livability list are African
Americans. If it’s not racial profiling, then what underlying social
issues are we looking at? Why doesn’t the city want to look into
this?”
But Bill Sinnott, former director of the Portland Business
Alliance’s Clean and Safe program, and the current SCT coordinator at
the Portland Police Bureau, says the list is generated via “blind data
runs based on property crimes.”
“It’s totally blind and we don’t look at anybody’s race to determine
whether or not they get on the list,” he says. “The program has been
assessed by the district attorney’s office and judges, and everybody
agrees that there is no racial profiling going on.”
O’Connor responds that since the city is concentrating its attention
on downtown Portland, inner Northeast, and inner Southeast for
particular kinds of crime, and basing the list on arrests that are made
with an officer’s discretion, there is still a question over who is
being targeted.
“You can’t say it’s completely arbitrary when the police bureau
makes the list,” he says.
O’Connor says he plans to challenge the SCT plan in court as soon as
his office receives the right case.
“For me, the higher goal has always been about getting people into
treatment,” says Leonard, who says the list has nothing to do with his
efforts to secure more funding for drug treatment. “I think O’Connor is
confusing the issue intentionally in order to further the interests of
his clients.”