Page 8 The Skanner February 8, 2017
News
The High Costs of Disparities for People of Color in Multnomah County
By Lee Van der Voo and Nick Budnick
InvestigateWest/Pamplin Media Group
Living black in Multnomah
When people discuss racial dispari-
ties in the criminal justice system, they
often focus on cops. Yet, as evidenced
by the gap in fines (which are outside
PHOTO BY JAIME VALDEZ
F
or everything from jaywalking to
driving without a license, it pays
to be white in Oregon if you run
afoul of the law.
What you really don’t want to be is
black.
For example, littering fines for Af-
rican-Americans are nearly double
those imposed on whites, according to
an analysis of cases filed in state courts
from 2005 to 2016. Transit fare viola-
tions? Those fines, too, are more than
doubled if you’re black.
Our review of the past dozen years
of court records shows that white res-
idents charged in relatively minor cas-
es in Multnomah County — those with
a single count — paid a median fine of
$181, while African-American defen-
dants paid $261.
Since 2005, that disparity added up to
about $5.6 million.
If you look at fines related to all cases,
African-American defendants in Mult-
nomah County paid about $21.5 million
more than they would have if their
fines had been equal to those levied on
white defendants.
“These are the hidden injustices built
into the justice system,” said Jo Ann
Hardesty, president of the Portland
Branch of the NAACP and a former
state legislator.
Teressa Raiford,
46, and a lead-
er of Don’t Shoot
PDX, said it was
only after talking
to white girls that
she learned police
didn’t know all
young kids by name
— just the black
kids.
Teressa Raiford
went from being a
pro-cop anti-gang
activist to leading
Jo Ann Hardesty speaks at the March for Justice and Equality on Jan 28, 2017. the group Don’t
Shoot PDX. She says
she learned from an
the control of police), obstacles to ob-
taining equal justice in Multnomah early age that her skin color merited
County — and throughout Oregon — special attention from police.
Red Hamilton, 40, a Milwaukie resi-
are seen at every tier of the criminal
dent
whose family lives in North Port-
justice system.
land,
says her brother has been stopped
Prosecutors, the courts and even
by
police
while walking to work.
state legislators play a role in perpetu-
“They ask him stuff like, ‘Oh, where
ating the disparities, but it’s logical to
zero in on police, who make the first — you going? You look familiar,’” Hamil-
and very public — contact with people ton said, “criminalizing him by just his
skin tone.”
who end up in our courts and jails.
And then there’s Kevin Jones’ story
In Multnomah County, ticket by tick-
from
last July.
et, arrest by arrest, African-Americans
The
co-founder of an arts group,
are charged three to 30 times as often
Jones
was
parked in the loading dock
as white residents for everything from
pedestrian and transit fare violations outside the Artists Repertory Theatre
to drug charges and crimes related to in downtown Portland, talking with
his production assistant, when an offi-
interactions with police.
For black people in Multnomah Coun- cer activated his squad car lights and
ty, unequal treatment in the criminal began questioning him — the officer’s
hand either on his gun or resting very
justice system is nothing new.
Lauretta Reye Austin, 22, described near it, his partner standing further
being hassled by a cop while waiting at back.
Jones, who was then directing a play
a MAX station.
on racial profiling for the August Wil-
son Red Door Project, asked what the
ld
Chi
basis for the stop was, pointing out that
he was parked legally and rented space
at the theater.
Eventually, the police were persuad-
ed and drove away. But the officer’s ini-
tial response to his questioning struck
Jones as out of line. “If you’re going to
have an attitude, let me have your driv-
er’s license,” he recalled the cop saying.
Such tales are the reality of life inside
these numbers: Of the 202 types of of-
fenses for which there was adequate
data to compare — everything from
mail theft to murder to escape from
prison or custody — African-American
residents in Multnomah County were
charged at higher rates than whites
for all but five types of crimes. And in
80 percent of those crimes, they were
charged at two or more times the rate
of whites.
Stark gap for drug crimes
The biggest disparities are seen in
drug crimes. Researchers have found
that African-Americans use most
drugs, including powder cocaine, at
lower rates than whites. The only drug
black people consume at a higher rate
is crack cocaine.
Yet black residents in Multnomah
County were charged at a rate seven
times that of whites for all drug cases.
In minor cocaine cases, mostly single
counts of possession, the rate was 30
times that of whites.
African-American residents com-
prise just 7 percent of Multnomah
County’s population, including people
of mixed race, but make up nearly a
third of charges for interfering with a
police officer.
Read the rest at TheSkanner.com
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