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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 1988)
i JW » Fr¡ osa ¡ it y •• » PC Peri . . . A Meet of Brilliant Performances Back from Nicaragua g R Page 8 Page 4 tf Oregon L ii ton 97403 MEADOWS 3 Meet Ed Whelan at Portland Meadows Coupon for free addmission - Page 8 I « \ l Hl I I \ I’ XKk I M I M» k . 25C ERYER PO RTL US P S 959 KHO RW» "The Eyes and Ears of the Community' Volume XVIII, Number 11 Public Forum on "Prostitution And The Law by Nyewusi Askari Sharon M cC orm ack was the m oderator for the "P ro s titu tio n and the Law " fo ru m held at M artin Luther King School. P articipating on the forum were (L R) Janet Johnson, ACLU; Judge D orothy According to the laws relating to prostitution as stated in the State of Oregon Criminal Code and the City of Portland Code manual, prostitu tion is defined as "Engaging in, o f fering to engage in, or agreeing to engage in an act of sexual conduct or sexual contact for a fee. The law goes on to say: "It is unlaw ful for any person to loiter in or near any street or public place in a man ner and under circumstances mani festing the purpose of inducing, en ticing, soliciting or procuring an other to commit an act of prostitu tion." In an attempt to define "circum stances" the law becomes vague. It says: "Among the circumstances which may be considered in deter mining whether such purpose is manifested are that the person re Baker, D is tric t C ourt; Wayne Pearson, D istrict A tto rn e y's O ffice; and Capt. Tom Potter, North Precinct. Photo by Richard J. B row n peatedly beckons to, stops or at tempts to stop motor vehicle opera tors by hailing them or gesturing to them ." In an effort to give citizens a clearer definition and understanding of such laws and other issues of concern, the Eliot/King Crime Pre vention Committee sponsored a public forum, "Prostitution & The Law", in the Martin Luther King School cafeteria last Thursday night. Participating in the forum were representatives from the Dist rict Attorney's Office, the ACLU, Portland Police North Precinct, Neighborhoods Against Crime and Multnomah County District Court. The tone of the meeting was set by moderator Sharon McCormack. "W e join hands tonight in the most organized way that we have with Inner Northeast people and othw citizens of the City who are con cerned about following the issue of prositution to the end," she ex plained as she addressed the audience and the panel. "We've done the protests, the marches, and they have all been worth it. It meant that we got to know each other, it meant that we shared values that took us to this point. But the time has come for us to have a coordinated, more sophisti cated plan in which not only are we venting our screams and expressing our righteous indignation about the problems, but getting answers," she said. Concerning the current laws on prositution activity, Judge Baker said, "W e're limited with what we have to work with. We're limited with the law, and we re also limited by some other things. We're limited by jail space, and we are not able to do some of the same things that we did a few years ago, as far as sentencing and keeping people in custody." Judge Baker noted that when the Justice Center first opened, the lack of jail space wasn't nearly the pro blem it is now. "I am even faced with the problem that if I have a felon that I have in custody that's dangerous, that person is still going to get matrixed o ut," she explained. Citing the problems created by the lack of jail space, she said even if prostitutes are sentenced to lengthy jail terms, they would not spend much time in jail. Judge Baker recently gained na tional attention when she ruled that a dangerous sex offender must post a "dangerous sex offender sign on the outside of his place of resi dence. She recommended that citi zens vote and work for more jail space, call for regular meetings at the Justice Center and the District Attorney's office, and organize a citizens' crime watch. Wayne Pearson, District Attor ney's Office, said that 1987 statistics show that the DA's Office process ed roughly 1670 adults for prostitu tion. "As a prosecutor, it doesn't appear as though we're having much success in combating this problem for this community," he said. "O f those 1670 cases, there was only one, to my knowledge, that occurred outside the City of Portland. Of those 1670 cases that were reviewed in 1987, 45% of them had been disposed of by the end of 1987 by way of a guilty plea. The rest are generally pending and the majority by way of bench warrant." It was explained that the DA’s Office encourages prostitutes to plead guilty to the charge of pro stitution because there are no charge reductions. For first time of fenders, the DA recommends to the court a $300 fine, 24 hours of alter native community service work, and one-year probation. For a second conviction, the recommendation is a $300 fine, ten days in jail, and two-years' probation. On a third conviction, there is a $500 fine, 30 days in jail, and two-years' proba- O fficer Harry Jackson . . . a com passionate person and he understands the problem they [p rostitu tes] face. - Capt Potter Photo by Richard J. Brown tion. The judge makes the final decision as to what the actual sen tence will be. Captain Potter, North Precinct, Sgt. Mike Bell, and Officer Harry Jackson teamed up to give a broad picture of how Portland police are r i attempting to upgrade their strate gies and tactics in the area of pro stitution. Sgt. Bell and Officer Jackson were introduced as the pri mary designers of law enforcement of prostitution in North Portland. Captain Potter said the prostitution problem is along Union Avenue and Interstate Avenue. He said that 793 (47%) of the 1670 cases were from North Pricinct and had occur red along Union and Interstate. Out of the 793 cases, 187 males were arrested on various charges of prostitution. Twenty-four cases in volved compelling or promoting prostitution (pimping). Potter said North Precinct has three officers, including Officer Jackson, who are assigned to the prostitution beat. They make con tact, on a regular basis, with pro stitutes, developing information and making arrests. Officer Jackson was praised by Potter. "He's a compassionate person and he understands the problem they face, and he also knows that he's enfor cing the law against these people. He gives them ample opportunity to make their changes, and, if they don't, then he enforces the law. And, he enforces it quite strictly, I might add," he said about Jack- son. Prostitution, as Potter explained it, occurs on different levels. Some prostitutes work the streets, others work from hotels, and many work from houses. He said that many of the prostitutes come from homes where they were victimized and that they continue to be victimized as prositutes. It was explained that not all the See "P ro s titu tio n ", Page 2 A Woman of Vision egan w ritin g because no one could w rite my story. I need to say le things about m yself and m y w o rld th a t no one else can say. Photo by Richard J. Brown IcElroy by Nyewusi Askari To look into the eyes of Colleen McElroy is to look into a place where vision takes on shapes and images that evolve into words that paint pictures of yesterday, today and tomorrow. She is a Poet. To hear her talk is to hear and feel African drums beating inside your heart and soul. Strong and vital messages. Poet Maya Angelou describes them as "Rich, and pain ful, and terribly beautiful." Marge Piercy says they are "Tight, tough, lovely." She has weaved her magic onto the pages of several books that in clude "The Mules Done Long Since Gone," "Music From Home: Selec ted Poems,” "Winters Without Snow," "Lie and Say You Love M e," "A Country Under Its Ori ginal Name," "Jesus and Fat Tues day," and "Queen of the Ebony Isles" for which she earned the American Book Award. On January 21, Ms. McElroy brought her magic to Catlin Gabel School. Her visit was sponsored by the Distinguished Writers Series, a program that is responsible for bringing a growing number of nation ally known writers to the school. Following a Thursday morning as sembly in the Cabell Center Audi torium on the Catlin Gabel campus, Ms. McElroy conducted a work shop with Upper School English and creative writing classes. A professor of English at the Uni versity of Washington, Seattle, Ms. McElroy is also a short story writer, a playwrite, a professor of writing and literature, and has been a talk show moderator, and a speech the rapist. She earned her Ph.D. in 1973 from the University of Wash ington. She also has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Pushcart: Best of Small Presses Award. She explained her visit to Catlin Gabel School. "I shared mostly poems with the students and how to collect stories about their fami lies; how to go and ask for grand pa's picture; how to imagine your history when you don't have any thing in writing and how to fill in the gaps. You might have a relative who will tell you a story. I one case we had a child who had a letter from a relative outside of the state, who, in that letter, because the child asked, said these are the things you need to know. Some of the things weren't clearly explained, so I told the child to go back and ask again. That's how you get it. But most of what we know is by word of mouth. It's not always true that we have something as con crete as a photograph, but almost always there is something else that can take its place. "There was a Black student in my class in Nebraska who's grand mother could only remember a re cipe she had been given by her mother. We worked together on that and then we wrote a story around that recipe. That was as tangible as anything. It told some thing about the geography, where she came from, and it forced the child to begin to think and imagine what life was like then. So, she had a stronger sense of history.' Ms. McElroy said she learned how to tell stories so that she could win friends in a hurry. "I learned how to understand what was im portant in a story." She explained that it's important for writers, espe cially young Black writers, to use language that can paint a picture. "A t Catlin Gabel, I talked about language being the way that we get somebody else inside our heads. Language is what you use to make the blind see. You can't be in my childhood, but with the right words, I can let you see a bit of magic. Her magic is strong, sweet, can did, skillful, sometimes painful, but never confining. In the poem "R uth” from the book "Queen of PC Peri, recently returned fro m Nicaragua, addresses a crow d at a rally protesting the latest proposal fo r Contra aid. The rally was held M onday noon at the Federal B uilding. See related story on Page 4. Photo by Richard J. B row n the Ebony Isles," she speaks to her mother in a way only a daughter could. "I have finally faced my self in you. For years I have w rit ten poems nonstop but yours were always more difficult. I have even tried dream language but your image slips into some zone of black ness even deeper in color than your skin when I am angered. How often has the venom from your blue berry lips stunted the growth of a poem. How often has your voice been with me. Wherever I go you have gone and sometimes gladly my need to reach out has pulled you to me. Mama for years I have hidden hundreds of unfinished ver ses in the corners of dark closets. Read this and count them ." Powerful, like the magic she weaves when she talks about why she became a writer. "I began writing because no one could write my story. I need to say some things about myself and my world that no one else can say. It's the drive that keeps me writing. Because I am conscious of who I am, what I say touches a lot of peo ple and allows them to have one See "W om an o f V is io n ", Page 4