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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 2012)
Local News Money Asian Reporter Banquet continued from page 1 “The City and BSK recently agreed to mutually terminate a grant agreement to fund three street level gang outreach work- er positions,” says Antoinette Edwards, director of the Portland’s Office of Youth Violence Prevention. “These very important three gang out- reach workers have been placed within the portfolio of Portland Opportunities Industri- alization Center (POIC), another City grantee that already oversees other gang outreach workers. We’re very pleased that Tonya Dickens said the nonprofit would continue its gang outreach work, paid or unpaid POIC can provide a seamless transition for these workers.” Justice improve outcomes. Sessions examined crime data; school discipline; the overrepre- sentation of poor children and children of color; debates over sentencing policies; the science of child development; child mental health; and media coverage of youth crime. Speakers included judges, attorneys, former youth prisoners, a police chief and advo- cates. Carrion discussed the costs of incarcera- tion and its consequences. Youth from the inner city were sent to upstate prisons hun- dreds of miles away from their families. And Department of Justice investigations into the state’s prisons found widespread abuse of incarcerated youth. “It now costs $260,000 a year to keep a young person incarcerated in the state of New York– with terrible outcomes,” she said. “So we are working closely with communities to create programs that serve the needs of young people.” The Oregonian has just published an exposé of years of sexual abuse of inmates at Coffee Creek Correction- al Facility. Coffee Creek is an adult prison, but youth also were processed through the prison. The Partnership for Safety and Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group has urged youth who went to Coffee Creek to speak out about their experiences. Carrion said her greatest challenge was opposition from public service unions, because the initiative cut 1000 jobs in the communities where youth prisons were sited. To overcome the objections of special interest groups, the state found ways to con- vert the former prisons to new uses. Experts who spoke touched on several national issues that The Skanner News has covered locally, such as: community efforts to pre- vent youth violence, the “schools to prison pipeline,” and restorative justice initiatives. This year, Oregon’s Commission on Pub- PHOTO continued from page 1 The Asian Reporter Foundation’s 14th Annual Scholarship and Awards Banquet featured special recognition of the four “Most Honored Elders” as well as community volunteer awards. Thirteen scholarships for $1,000 were given to local youth. Here, Most Honored Elders Dr. Angelito Saqueton, Dr. Bolyvong Tanovan, Fred Wong and Wing Louie are surrounded by participants in the festivities, held Friday night at Legin Restaurant. The newspaper honored its publisher, Jaime Lim, for his years of service to the community. Guests included The Skanner News Publisher Bernie Foster, former Sen. Avel Gordly, human rights activist Kathleen Sadat, and more. the Partnership for Safety and Justice, say now is a good time to examine youth justice policy. Violent crime has dropped, yet the last decade has seen Oregon jails hold record numbers of inmates. And while numbers of pris- oners have doubled, costs have tripled. As readers of The Skanner News will know, African American, Latino and Native American youth are over- represented at every stage of our justice system. That’s true nationally and it’s also true in Oregon. Multnomah County is known nationally as a place of progressive policies – for example, keeping youth offenders in youth facilities until they are 25 years old. How- ever, 25 of Oregon’s 36 counties send youth to adult jails along with those arrested after age 18. Oregon teens charged under Measure 11 must be tried and sentenced as adults if they are 15 or older. Last year, for example, a Hillsboro teen who committed a murder at age 13, was sentenced as an adult to 30 years to life with no possibility of parole before 30 years. Notably too, this summer the United States Supreme Court will rule on whether sentencing teens to life with no possibility of parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. occupants of the vehicle, and thus without sufficient suspicion on which to base the stop,’’ the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says the Border Patrol’s behavior in Washington state is similar to that of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, which the Department of Justice recently condemned. One of the chief arguments in the lawsuit is that similar behavior in the 1980s by immigration and Border Patrol agents in the Yakima Valley was deemed illegal by a fed- eral court in eastern Washington, which George W. Bush ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Bor- der Patrol, to beef up its presence on the U.S.-Canada border, which is almost twice as long as the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2007, the northern border had nearly 1,100 agents. Now it has more than 2,200. In the same period, the number of agents in the Blaine sector, which covers the border area west of the Cascades, went from 133 to 331. Over the years, Border Patrol enforce- ment practices common on the southern border, such as highway checkpoints, have been implemented along the northern border, miffing residents on the Olympic Peninsula, the area’s con- gressman and an U.S. Senator and local authorities. Agents cut back on road and ferry checkpoints after objec- tions mounted. Tensions rose last year after a forest worker drowned following a foot chase with a Border Patrol agent. The Mexican nation- al jumped into a frigid river to elude the agent. His body was found entangled in roots three weeks later. The Olympic Peninsula is home to rural towns around the edge of the 1,441-square- mile Olympic National Park. Many immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala have moved there to work in the forests picking salal, an ornamental leaf. Oregon’s Commission on Public Safety will be continuing to look at how to reduce costs in the state’s $1.4 billion corrections budget lic Safety will be continuing to look at how to reduce costs in the state’s $1.4 billion corrections budget. Reform groups, such as ACLU continued from page 1 Border Patrol spokesman Richard Sinks said U.S. Customs and Border Protection ``strictly prohibits’’ profiling on the basis of race or religion. ``In determining whether individuals are admissible into the United States, CBP uti- lizes specific facts and follows the Department of Justice’s `Guidance Regard- ing the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies,’’’ Sinks said. The agency has said it is following its mandate to enforce the country’s immigra- tion laws and protect the border and shoreline from terrorists, drug smugglers and other illegal activity. But one of the plaintiffs says Border Patrol agents stopped him numerous times, even though he’s a U.S. citizen. Jose Sanchez, a prison guard at Olympic Corrections Center in Forks, Wash., said agents have followed him home and ques- tioned him when he’s with his family. In one instance, they told Sanchez they were pulling him over because his windows were too dark, but they didn’t ask for his car insurance or registration, the lawsuit says. Another plaintiff is Ernest Grimes, a prison guard at Clallam Bay Corrections Center and a part-time police officer from Neah Bay, Wash. Grimes said a Border Patrol agent pulled him over last year. According to the lawsuit, the agent approached Grimes, who is black, with his hand on his weapon while yelling at him to roll down his window. The agent provided no reason for the traf- fic stop while he interrogated Grimes about his immigration status, the lawsuit alleges. Grimes was wearing his guard uniform at the time. The third plaintiff, 18-year-old Ismael Ramos Contreras of Forks, was with a group of friends when four agents pulled them over. The lawsuit says one of the agents tried to take the keys out of the igni- tion and interrogated the teenagers but never provided a reason for the stop. Ramos also was asked for his immigration status outside a courthouse in Forks. ``The Border Patrol’s actions have created a climate of fear and anxiety for many people living on the Olympic Peninsula. The resi- dents in this suit all are U.S. citizens who worry that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars,’’ said Sarah Dunne, the ACLU’s legal director. The lawsuit says traffic stops by Border Patrol agents violate the Fourth Amendment and exceed the agency’s legal powers. It seeks to bar such stops until agents are trained on what constitutes reasonable sus- picion. Border Patrol agents ``have implemented a practice of stopping vehicles or participat- ing in vehicle stops based on a hunch or intuition, including stops based solely on the ethnic and/or racial appearance of the One of the plaintiffs says Border Patrol agents stopped him numerous times, even though he’s a U.S. citizen issued a statewide injunction. The suit also asks the court to require that agents file paperwork justifying each traffic stop and make it readily available to a court- appointed special master. The lawsuit is seeking a class-action status. ACLU of Washington spokesman Doug Honig said the lawsuit is focused on Border Patrol activities on the Olympic Peninsula, but ``a favorable ruling presumably would cause the Border Patrol to re-examine its practices across the northern border.’’ After the Sept. 11 attacks, President May 2, 2012 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3
