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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 2012)
WWW . THESKANNER . COM N OVEMBER 21 , 2012 P ORTLAND , O REGON V OLUME XXXV, N O . 7 25 CENTS For The Skanner news alerts Text "NEWS" to 503-715-0890 or scan this QR code C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW Girls Meet on Gangs DYNAMIC Renowned vocalist Josephine Howell highlighted the performance of trumpet player Gabriel Burbano during her performance Nov. 17 at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in Seattle. Josie is famous for her dynamic audience interaction and her Langston Hughes performance was no exception. Judge Nan Waller hosts courthouse intervention We love you. We want to help you. But you have to help us too, by staying away from gangs, drugs and weapons. Work to stay out of trouble and your future can be anything you want it to be. Stay involved with criminals and crime, and you could find yourselves behind bars for a long time. That was the powerful message delivered to a small group of girls on probation last Friday evening in Judge Nan Waller’s downtown courtroom. Roy Jay, chair of the African American Chamber of Commerce and founder of Project Clean Slate, hosted the hour-long event, designed to help the girls get their lives on track. The girls’ meeting was part of a series of “call ins” named, “Standing up to Gang Vio- lence: Not One More Drop. ” The call ins, also brought together small groups of gang- affiliated men and boys to hear from com- munity members, pastors, police, parents who had lost children and former gang members. Ericka Pruitt of Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice, told Portland’s Nov. 9 gang task force meeting that 75 gang members have attended four recent call ins. “Everybody was there really, clearly giv- ing a message about accountability, but also a message about love,” Pruitt said. Girls make up an increasing number of youth in Multnomah County’s juvenile jus- tice system. Last year almost one in four youth admitted to Multnomah County’s Donald E. Long Detention Center were girls. All told that was 91 girls. Their aver- age age was almost 16, more than half of them were minorities. And in our city, with its African American population of less than 7 percent, a third of them were Black girls. Modeled on the work of David Kennedy, who created the gang-intervention program Ceasefire, call ins bring in small groups of PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED By Helen Silvis Of The Skanner News The Unequal States of America Why has inequality increased and what can states do about it? By Helen Silvis Of The Skanner News When the economy grows, incomes rise and everyone ben- efits. During the 1950s that’s exactly how it worked. But for the last 30 years, the top 20 per- cent of Americans have benefit- ed far more from growth than middle-income or lower-income households. The result? Income inequali- ty has risen steeply across the country. That’s the conclusion of a See GIRLS on page 3 INDEX News ................2,3,5,6 Opinion .....................4 A & E ......................5,8 Food..........................6 Bids/Classifieds ..........7 joint report released Wednesday by Washington DC-based think tanks, the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Gains from growth have gone mainly to the top leaving the middle and the bottom earn- ers at the side of the road,” says Doug Hall, director of econom- ic analysis and research at EPI. “That’s clearly not a recipe for shared prosperity.” Over the last decade, house- holds in the bottom 20 percent income bracket have seen their incomes fall by 5.8 percent, even as incomes have risen 8.6 percent for the richest 20 per- cent, the report says. For the top 5 percent those gains are even higher at 13.9 percent. The report, titled “Pulling Apart,” looks at the national picture, but also breaks down the numbers state by state. Nationally, over 30 years, it’s not just low-income households that have lost ground. Middle- class households too have fallen behind. And because the report does not include income from capital gains, which benefits the richest groups far more than the poor- est, it actually underestimates income inequality. For example, a separate analysis by the Ore- gon Center for Public Policy, found that in 2010, the top 1 percent of Oregon families col- lected about 70 percent of all capital gains income in the state. Oregon and Washington are not among the states with the largest gaps between the top and bottom income groups. In See UNEQUAL on page 3 Reps: DOJ Should Respect Pot Votes Taxes could bring the states tens or hundreds of millions of dollars Gene Johnson The Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — A group of lawmakers on Friday urged the Justice Department to respect recent votes in Colorado and Wash- ington state allowing the recreational use of marijuana, and some introduced a bill to ensure that happens. Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado said her bill would bar the federal government from blocking state marijuana laws. Several other lawmakers have signed on, including Republican Rep. Mike Coff- man of Colorado. ``I voted against Amendment 64 and I strongly oppose the legalization of marijua- na, but I also have an obligation to respect the will of the voters,’’ Coffman said in a statement. ``I feel obligated to support this legislation.’’ Voters this month made Washington and Colorado the first states to allow adults over 21 to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and to set up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Taxes could bring the states tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year, financial analysts See MARIJUANA on page 3
