PORTLAND’S NEW drug-crime exclusion zones—drawn up last year amid the frustrated entreaties of Old Town neighbors—have been billed as an improvement over their racially problematic predecessors: so-called Drug-Free Zones (DFZs) that wound up overwhelmingly targeting African American Portlanders.
Unlike under the previous zones, it’s judges, and not cops, who get to decide which drug criminals deserve exclusions—a determination based on convictions instead of arrests, following a lengthy legal process. And also unlike the old zones, set aside in 2007, a chance at treatment is supposed to go hand in hand with exclusions. Even the name is different this time around: The zones, in downtown, Old Town, and near the Lloyd Center, are now called Drug Impact Areas (DIAs).
So are the new zones actually living up to that promise? For accountability advocates, that’s still an open question.
A six-month report released by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office last week tracks race in only one category: convictions in the 240 cases that occurred inside a DIA. By that measure, the DIAs do seem like an improvement. Just 37 percent of cases involved African Americans, the report showed—much better than under the old DFZs, in which as many as 50 percent of arrestees were black [“Black Exclusion Zones,” News, March 8, 2007].
Billy Prince, the deputy district attorney overseeing the program, says the difference between the two “can’t be overstated.”
“The old project was one person saying you’re excluded from this particular area,” he said. “There weren’t a lot of steps in that process.”
But that statistic, while encouraging, doesn’t tell the entire story.
“Is that an improvement? I guess so,” says Portland Copwatch’s Dan Handelman. “Is it still targeting African Americans? I think so. It’s better than the old Drug-Free Zones, but there’s still something wrong.”
The report, for instance, doesn’t break down by race those who were actually convicted in drug cases citywide, let alone given exclusions, sent to jail, or diverted into drug court. That’s significant data. According to one study of the old zones, 100 percent of African Americans arrested were given exclusions, compared to 58.6 percent of whites. Portland’s black population is just 6 percent.
Prince did provide some additional data at the Mercury‘s request. Of 90 people (through Tuesday, January 24) excluded in cases that started in a drug zone, 47 percent were black and 53 percent were white. In cases from outside the drug zones, 36 percent of those given exclusions were black, while 58 percent were white.
That data, however, isn’t as valuable without a race breakdown of all convictions in the same timeframe. He said the DA’s office would look at providing that data in its next quarterly report, due this spring.
Also concerning: The report provides no information on how the exclusions have been enforced. Prince referred the Mercury to the Portland Police Bureau for information on trespassing arrests related to the exclusions. Sergeant Pete Simpson, a bureau spokesman, did not answer whether it even tracks that data, let alone provide it in time for the Mercury‘s deadline.
“The city and state might exclude anyone convicted of a relevant crime,” says public defender Chris O’Connor, “but the interesting question is which of the excluded people get accused of violating the exclusion zone.”
Still, city officials and prosecutors are clearly bullish about the program. In a handwritten note to the Portland City Council on the letter accompanying his office’s report, District Attorney Michael Schrunk says, “Looks like a success—thank you all for your support.”
In terms of easing crime, the zones do appear to be making a difference. Beyond exclusions and treatment, which is funneled through Portland’s Service Coordination Team (SCT), the program allows Prince to focus on drug cases and also funds a near-daily walking patrol in Old Town by Portland cops. Cases once treated as violations, because of budget cuts, are once again treated as misdemeanors and felonies.
“I’ve seen a reduction,” says Howard Weiner, an Old Town business owner who helped lobby Mayor Sam Adams’ office for the zones, adding he was glad to see the “convictions are more broadly based.”
Prince says he’s heard from addicts who’d grown tired of being hassled by dealers outside treatment facilities.
The report does overstate one thing: It says 43 people are “currently being served” by the SCT. Austin Raglione, who directs the SCT, clarified to say that’s how many have participated at some point.
“Not everyone who enrolls stays,” she says. “It’s the nature of the beast. Some of those 43 are successful, but we haven’t graduated any of them yet.”
Hee Hee Heee good one.
No Kristin Bells nearby HUH?
Julia House is fun for afew.
mmmm……..umm, there are some lame guys and girls around there, them strip clubs and pearl district where I will no doubt be. If the samdicks are on my ass, I hope I can react appropriately. Gross. Its every Central Floridians girl to see what they are actually.
Hand-wringing naive white-guilt libtard horse shit.
Funny how the anti-white RACIST author Denis C. Theriault continues to lie and shamelessly coddle criminals while the simple truth is that GOOD PEOPLE DO NOT WANT CRIMINALS AROUND THEMSELVES. Only anti-human psychopaths like Denis C. Theriault want criminals running wild around children, women, men, and the elderly.
Here is a simple tidbit of information. Black males aged 14-49 (3% of the population) commit 51% of all the murders in the USA yearly. The numbers for black-on-white rape are much worse along with theft, armed robbery, and kidnapping. People like Denis C. Theriault want the offspring of generations of genetic-psychopaths running wild around your families and coddled in the courts with limp-wristed hand slaps for violent anti-human crimes.
Do you know who is worse than the anti-human genetic-psychopaths (generations of cannibals & rapists – just look to the daily headlines from the Congo & Liberia & Uganda)? It is the anti-human psychopaths that ENABLE the genetic-psychopaths. The anti-human ENABLERS that open the gates of stable society wide and demand funding for the violent monsters that they themselves invited in. See your enemy folks, the genetically-psychopathic biological weapons from Africa are just the wild attack dogs, the anti-human ENABLERS are the enemies within your gates guiding these monsters to rape & murder you in vast numbers (GOOGLE[ New York Homicide Map 2003-2009 ]).
Note the hallmarks of a racist:
(1) They speak in CODE – Violent Blacks are now “disadvantaged YOUTHS” (or just “teens”), the race of the criminal is never mentioned if they are black or Hispanic. The race of the victim is never mentioned if the victim is White. Can you say, “Soft Genocide” or “Quiet Mass-Murder”?
(2) They regularly support the anti-human violence of their criminal accomplices – Black teens that rape white children & white elderly women & murder white people are now cheered on for being “gutsy” or “bold” and the media co-conspirators declare, “He was a good boy, an aspiring rapper going for a GED”, rather than a career criminal with 20+ arrests for violent felonies going back to when he was 12.
(3) They mock the suffering of the victims or ignore them utterly while obsessing about how the murdering criminals “Feel” and then go to great lengths to worry about the genetically-psychopathic criminal’s “inconveniences” as a result of the crime. Because, they too, in the media are amoral soulless sociopaths.
(4) They recruit endlessly more victims for their criminal gangs to torture and humiliate and murder by hawking a dishonest line about how “Diversity Improves Lives” (the lives of the murdering criminals, not the lives of the victims). Note the identical racial demographics of all the worst violent cities in the USA.
So, why are you rewarding the accomplices & excusers of these genocidal crimes against yourself to continue to populate the video media and publishing? Why are you financially rewarding the criminals that obscure the painful truth of the low level war waged against the majority populace with your hard earned dollars?
Here is another fun tidbit about African Apartheid.
Max Coleman’s authoritative book analyses all deaths due to political violence from 1948 to 1994 in South Africa and Namibia.
According to the HRC statistics, 21,000 people died in political violence in South Africa during apartheid – of whom 14,000 people died during the six-year transition process from 1990 to 1994. The book lists the number of incidents, dates, and those involved.
This includes SA Defence Force actions, for instance the 600 deaths at Kassinga in Angola during the war in 1978.
Of those deaths, the vast majority, 92%, have been primarily due to Africans killing Africans — such as the inter-tribal battles for territory: this book’s detailed analyses of the period June 1990 to July 1993 indicates a total of 8580 (92%) of the 9,325 violent deaths during the period June 1990 to July 1993 were caused by Africans killing Africans, or as the news media often calls it, “Black on Black” violence – hostel killings, Inkatha Freedom Party versus ANC killlings, and taxi and turf war violence.
The activities of the Civil Cooperation Bureau as outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were also included in these figures.
The security forces caused 518 deaths (5.6%) throughout this period.
Now do yourself a favour and compare 400 deaths a year under the apartheid regime, to over 20,000 deaths per year, currently.
AND then ask yourself: “Am I a hypocrite”
What the latest crime stats tells us.
South Africa now has the proud distinction of being on top of the crime statics lists. They have edged passed Colombia to claim this top spot.
They list the deaths at 21,000. That is 21,000 from 1948.
That is less than 400 people per year under “cruel” Apartheid.
Remarkable.
I also find it remarkable that 92% of these deaths were caused by the blacks themselves.
They were and still remain inhumanely cruel.
It is easy to see that the blacks had always been the killers and that what is suffered today by the hapless whites, is just an escalation of continuing black violence.
God help you people to keep you safe from the unwashed, uneducated, cruel, stupid masses.
I agree with you that it is a good thing that the propaganda age has finally come to an end.
The truth WILL come out and in connection with the white people of South Africa I suspect it will be a case of the truth WILL set you free.
Will the truth set you free or will you continue to allow yourselves to be enslaved to provide cradle-to-grave food + housing + medical care for the perpetually genetically-psychopathic offspring of the black moronic children of violent rapist cannibals? Don’t you deserve much better than this? You have been extorted at gunpoint, lied to by vile sociopaths in the media, and continually victimized by their black psychopathic criminal accomplices. You merely need the will to organize QUIETLY and take certain permanent action. You can yank the leeches off your backs and crush them beneath your boot heel.