Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1977)
Krs Francea Schoen-Naaapapar Room U n iv e rs ity of Oraron L ib ra ry bugene, Oregon 97403 County budget castrates MHRC PORTLAND OBSERVER La* Brown: Now brood in low enforcement s’ -„ According to nationally -syndicated columnist Carl Rowan, A tty . Gen. Griffen Bell is considering abolition of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (L E A A ). Rowan cites conclusions made by the Attorney General's office, concur rent with criticisms made earlier by the National Urban League, that L E A A has proven relatively ineffective due to improper channeling of program funds by L E A A Administrators: money which should have gone to financing new crime reduction programs was spent on new hardware; little was spent to involve Blacks, the disproportionate perpetrators and victims of crime, in the war against crime as partially indicated by the mini mal allocation of funds to criminal justice programs at Black universities, and the hiring of only nine Blacks in filling LEA A 's 198 professional, administrative and management positions. The study also indicated that police/ community relations are predicated on fear and distrust. In conclusion, the reporter suggests that Bell "try a new staffing pattern and targeting of its (LEAA 's) resources." rather than scrapping the office. I f Rowan's commentary were well taken, it would provide all the more reason for the Justice Department to take a good, long look at people such as Lee Brown. Director of Justice Services for Multnomah County. Brown was named earlier this year as a candidate for the deputy directorship of the agency and has been suggested to President Carter as a possible candidate for the directorship. Not that Brown to some kind of soulful magician who can cure the ills of the agency with a Black face and some measure of administrative prestidigitation; but as a policeman, community relations person, educator, sheriff and administrator, he has demon strated his qualifications as a capable public servant and administrator of inno vative law enforcement programs. D r. Brews (he has a PhD in law enforcement) was appointed Sheriff of Multnomah County in 1975 for the ex pressed purpose of reorganising the department to implement the innovative and controversial Team Policing Program which sought to maximize services in the face of budgetary limitations. Opinion A year-and-a-half later, he was named Director of Justice Services, another product of radical reorganization in the county justice system, which involves a systematic approach to coordinating personnel, planning, budgeting and policy »«»ting of the many areas of justice services including the District Attorney's Office, the Courts, the Medical Examin ers. Juvenile Court and Juvenile Home, Public Safety. Corrections. Public De fender. Legal Aid and the Law Library. "One of the things you find in just about all the literature that deals with crime and the criminal justice system," explains D r. Brown, “to the fragmenta tion of what to called the *Crimin«l Justice System.' For all practical purposes, there to no system...you have various compon ents of an overall system that may or may Multnomah County has announced that its contribution to the Metropolitan Hu man Relations Commission for 1977-1978 will be $42.790 rather than the $45,971 request. The City of Portland contribu tion matches that of the County, making a total request of $91,942 for the year. The budget had already been pared down from the original request of approximat ely $96,000. Since the City intends to match the county contribution, the net effect of the county's action will be a $6,422 reduction. During the 1976-1977 budget year, Multnomah County contributed only $25,000 due to shortage of funds. The city carried more than its share of the operation, providing enough funds to keep the Commission operative with a reduced staff. Metropolitan Human Relations Com mission currently has a staff consisting of a director, a human relations specialist and a secretary. The requested funds would allow the addition of two staff positions. In the public hearing Wednesday, Vern Pearson, Chairman of MHRC that the plans of the Commission for the coming fiscal year include: a public information project to bring to the community the awareness of differences between groups of people an« remind them of the importance of equality; a study of racial discrimination in housing; s Neighbor hood Mediation Project which would deal with neighborhood and family conflicts in an informal way, avoiding police contact; study the effect of practices of law and enforcement and the judicial process on minorities; develop civil disorder contin gency plan; study school desegregation in Portland; and continue to provide a forum for greviences. Nick Barnett. MHRC Director told the County Board of Commissioners. “Now - $3,211 in comparison to the much larger sums other bureaus need might not be of much impact to them. But for an office such as MHRC, which for the past nine months has had a permanent staff of only a Director, one professional staff mem ber, and one secretary to carry out duties that are mandated to be responsive to an entire County and City the size of this metropolitan area, this obviously puts MHRC's mission in critical jeopardy. . . “In essence, our request represents a strictly cost-conscious effort to carry (Please turn to page 2 eoi. 1) Eugene student earns Achievement aw ard Brian Rousseve of Churchill High School in Eugene has been selected for a $1000 National Achievement Scholarship sponsored by IB M Corporation. Rousseve is one of two Oregon high school students selected on the basis of competitive testing in their junior and senior years. Brian, who is seventeen years old, was born in Hempstead, Texas, on November 17,1959. He has two older brothers, ages 19 and 20. His father is a professor at the University of Oregon and his mother is a housewife. Brian has lived in Eugene since he was in the third grade. Brian is president of Churchill’s chap ter of the National Honor Society, a member of the French Club, and last year was the school's Assistant Budget and Finance Director. W ith an interest in acting, he played a minor role in “The Emperor Jones.” He also served on a community committee exploring alterna tive schools in the Eugene area. Brian was selected for inclusion in “Who's Who Among American High School Students, 1976-77" and has re ceived awards for accomplishments in Advancd Placement American History and other social studies and literature classes over the past three years. He has been accepted by Stanford, Lewis & Clark, and Oregon College of Education and currently is leaning to ward OCE. He expects to major in Geography. S. \ \ * \ \ M L L E E BROWN not come together at some place.” A coordinating body would provide a consis tency toward the achievement of system wide goals and prevent components of the system from working against each other. “W hat I think we have here," he added, “is a model that many people throughout the nation are looking at for potential for replicating it in their cities." Brown pointed out that the City of New York has followed the example and appointed a deputy mayor of criminal justice, a position similar to his. The relationship between the police and the community is something that Brown has been dealing with since he developed and headed such a unit for the San Joee Police Department in the late 60s at the height of campus disturbances and the Black athlete protest spearhead ed by H arry Edwards. "That involve ment obviously gives you a perspective on all aspects of community life, in terms of those who are protesting, the issues involved...and the ability and willingness of the city to respond to differences of opinion,” recounted Brown of the experi ence. Another aspect of the San Jose experi ence dealt with the voicing of concerns by the minority community about the qual ity of life in the city. Says Brown. “My primary objective was to attempt to avoid the disturbances that were occur- ing in other places...to bring about non violent resolution to the conerns that were being voiced.” “There was a myth in the 60’» that Blacks didn't want the services of law enforcement agencies,” said Brown, add ing that currently, "there is a high level of awareness in the Black community and a worldwide recognition that we must have some law enforcement." Those services, however, must be organized to deal with cultural differences. Brown sees this as an “exciting time” for Blacks to get involved with law enforcement and he cites the increasing number of people, including Blacks, look ing seriously into careers in that area. The criminal justice system is being challenged, even from within the system itself, to make law enforcement more responsive in all areas. "There is more writing, more organiza tions and more studies concentrating on crime and the criminal justice system. The Institution of Law Enforcement to amenable to change,” he says, and there is the recognition that public support is necessary if law enforcement is to be successful in carrying out its mission. The injection of some new blood in an anemic system in the form of the young Blacks on the campuses and entering the justice system, may be the answer to the disease which plagues American communities. Brian was extremely pleased to receive the scholarship award. “The award is quite important to me for several reasons the most important of which io the original objective of the Achievement Program - to recognize and honor the Black students demonstrating exception al achievement in school and promise for the future. The fact that I have been recognized as one of these students is quite an honor.” Brian attributes his success to several factors: "I am a member of a family that has always taken education seriously and that has encouraged us to do well in school. I've also benefitted from having been taught by some really stimulating teachers from grade school right up to the present. Perhaps most important is the fact that I've enjoyed reading and learning things since I was a young child, and I've been seriously committed to mastering the content of my classes." K B R IA N ROUSSEVE Vancouver NAACP meets The Vancouver Branch, N A A C P, will hold a public education meeting on April 24th at the Pacific First Federal Hospital ity Room, 915 Broadway, Southeast entrance. The topic of the meeting is “Reasons You Should Belong To the N AA CP”. Speakers include Board members: Bobby Davis, Edith Roeder, Clarence Harris, and Bertha Baugh; Marshall Hudson, Instructor at Clark College and Theodore Baugh, E x a m in e r-In v e s tig a to r, Real Estate Division, State of Oregon. Areas to be covered are: jobs, housing, education, civil rights, public facilities, political, emergency relief and others, including the History of the NAACP. Sherry Davis, daughter of M r. & Mrs. Andrew Davis, of Vancouver, who recently returned from Brazil as an Exchange Student, will tell us about her experiences. Sherry completed her high school courses there, however upon returning home, she reentered Fort Vancouver High School to finish with her class. She plans to continue her educa tion this fall in college. Everyone is welcome to the meeting. B ARBARA A N N T E E R Conference demonstrates arts Barbara Ann Teer, founder and chief visionary of the National Black Theatre, is a liberating force of magical power who takes an awiience on a “Soljourney into Truth.” She is assisted on this journey by liberators from the National Black Thea tre whose creative skills and theatrical expertise have received world wide acclaim. A Soljourney is a ritualistic revival that tugs at the inner force of all who encounter its presence. And, if you will allow yourself the privilege, Barbara and the National Black Theatre’s liberators will show you a way to spiritual uplifting that wiii allow you to reach inside yourself and experience the love that is (Please turn to page 2 col. 4) were staying longer. But even these statistics mask several hidden figures indicating the rise in detentions is much sharper, including: *A growing number of youths sent to adult jails to compensate for cutbacks in juvenile facilities, a practice condemned by reformers for more than a century. L E A A jail census figures show that between 1970 and 1972, when youth institution populations began to drop, the youth populations in local adult jails on a given day shot up from 7,800 to 12,7000. •A trend toward use of private facilites to replace state and local lock-ups. These include everything from large detention centers run by private charities or church groups to small private homes for juven ile delinquents. Though comparable figures are not available for previous years, the L E A A found nearly 32,000 youths in private detention facilities in 1974. But a look at several states that trumpeted “deinsti tutionalization" in the early seventies indicates the decline in public youth prison populations was often accomp anied by increased use of private facil ities. In Massachusetts, for example, the number of youths in public custody dropped all the way from 724 in 1971 to 161 in 1974. But by 1974 the state had over 1,000 children in private detention centers. *An unknown number of youths sent by the courts each year to homes for neglected and dependent children, mental hospitals and institutions for the retarded. In the early 1970's, several states passed legislation requiring that many “status" offenders- those, like truants or runaways, whose crimes are illegal only for. youths-be handled outside the juven ile justice institutions. But no systematic data is available showing where they went. Much recent research has questioned the effect that diversion of youths from the juvenile courts has had. The bulk of federal delinquency prevention funds goes for diversion programs, but several studies suggest the effect has not been to replace youth prisons. Instead, as former Massachusetts Youth Commissioner Jerome Miller has argued, such programs have "swept new people into the system who otherwise might have been ignored.” Malcolm Klein of the University of Southern California, for example, re cently found that the prime candidates for police diversion programs in the Los Angeles area were minor first-time offenders. Before the programs they would have been released with a warning by police. Now they are shunted into shelter care (Please turn to page 2 col. 3) More children behind bars by EBtott Currie* (PN 8) - Ten years ago, study after study concluded that imprisonment was the worst possible treatment for children who broke the law. But today the number of youths behind bars in America is skyrocketing. A decade of liberal reform aimed at channeling young offenders away from penal institutions-into counseling, job training programs, mental health ser vices and the like-has been reversed. The bewildering array of youth institu- tions-public and private, local and state, huge prisons and small homes-makes it difficult to accurately estimate the num ber of youths in detention. But it appears that more children are locked up, in adult jails as well as juvenile facilities, than ever before. The swelling ranks behind bars parallel the shrinking opportunities for youths in the streets and schools of America’s cities. A t the same time that youth unemployment has risen, financially pressed cities have cut back on school, recreational and social welfare programs. As at least a partial result, youth “property” crimes spurted up by 50 percent between 1970 and 1975. FBI . statistics indicate youths under 18 now account for ever half of all arrests for burglary and auto theft and over one third for robbery. A growing public outcry against the recession-spurred urban crime wave had fueled what Jane Ward of the California Youth Authority calls “a more punitive attitude toward kids, a feeling among judges and others that kids should be locked up.” With no place else to send delinquent youths, juvenile justice has become a boom industry-the agency of first, rather than last resort. The trend is spelled out by a national study done at the University of Michi gan's School of Social Work. "Juvenile justice resources have increased,” it concluded, “at the same time other youth- serving agencies experienced declines in their resources...... “Given the reductions in other key sectors (e.g. public education and child welfare), there may be a tendency to refei youth to those institutions or organizations with the greatest re sources." In more human terms, a California juvenile justice worker laments, “So ws know locking them up won’t do anybody any good. So what else is new? Where else are we going to put them?” R EFO R M OF S IX IT IE S During the 1960's, juvenile court judges, scholars and blue-ribbon com missions all agreed that locking youths up not only failed to “rehabilitate” them, but often made them worse. In 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administra tion of Justice declared the juvenile justice system a “failure.” “The youth who has once been through the process and comes out a delinquent is more likely to act delinquent again." it said. “The most informed and benign institu tional treatment of the child, even in well designed and staff reformatories and training schools, thus may contain within it the seeds of its own frustration, and itself may often feed the very disorder St is designed to cure.” Fueled by the emerging consensus, many states experimented with pro grams to “divert" youth from the justice system to presumably more constructive social services. But today, after extensive studies of this “diversion" process, most criminólo gists agree that rather than replacing jails, the new alternatives have simply made room for more youths -including less serious offenders-in the juvenile justice system. And pressed by the public outcry against crime, even some of the states that led the reform swing, such as California and Massachusetts, are begin ning to fund more lock ups. SURGE IN D E T E N T IO N S In 1960, one of every 50 American youths aged 10 to 17 came before a juvenile court on a delinquency charge. By 1974, according to the University of Michigan survey, the rate had doubled, to one o f every 25. Though comprehensive statistics for the years since 1974 are not yet available, the federal Office of Youth Development says the rate is still climbing. Between 1971 and 1973, though more youths came before juvenile courts, the diversion trend brought about a 16 percent drop in the youth population in state and local facilities, according to the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (L E A A ). In 1974, how ever, the trend flattened out, despite the fact that Texas was forced by a court ruling to empty its youth prisons of more than 750 inmates. The Michigan survey, covering state but not county or municipal facilities, found the same drop between 1971 and 1973. But it recorded a nationwide surge in detentions, from 28,000 to 34,000 in 1974. Since then, evidence from those states with data available suggests the trend toward more lock-ups has continued. In California, for example, a state that gained national attention in the 1980's when commitments to state youth insti tutions dropped. Youth Authority deten tions jumped 90 percent between 1972 and 1976. And once in custody, youths
