Some aren't necessarily all that big a deal. Like taking free Blazer tickets and failing to report it, or failing to do more to at least appear to be responsive to people interested in Major League Baseball in Portland. Some are, like demoting Derek Foxworth for weak reasons (not saying Foxworth didn't deserve a demotion, but the reason offered by Potter was poor, given the variety of reasons available), firing a police lieutenant for shooting a felon (as opposed to simply disciplining or demoting him), his ludicrous "VisionPDX" initiative, and so on.
I almost choked tonight, though, when I heard that Tom Potter has decided to pull the plug on Portland's 15 year old Drug Free and Prostitution Free Zone ordinances.
The quote proffered by Potter to explain the change: "I have concluded that both programs are no longer serving their intended purpose and act only to suppress a serious community problem rather than solving it."
That doesn't reflect the actual reasoning offered in the city press release, however, which indicated the decision was the result of a study on racial fairness in the application of the ordinance.
So, let's discuss a bit.
First, a brief discussion of what the zones are. The zones are a creation of the City Council, via ordinance, and can be found in Portland City Code chapters 14B.20 (for DFZ's) and 14B.30 (for PFZ's). The way they work is this: within the zones, an arrest for certain crimes can result not only in charges based upon those crimes, but also in exclusion from the zone. Exclusions are not mandatory, but are at the discretion of the arresting officer. "Exclusion" doesn't mean a person isn't allowed in the zone. Instead, it means (essentially) that a person may not be loitering within the zone, and if located within the zone the person must be at all times travelling for a permissible purpose (for which they must have a "variance"). Permissible purposes include heading to or from a home within the zone, a job within the zone, a treatment or social service provider within the zone, an essential need within the zone (such as a grocery store), and usage of public transportation within the zone. People are further able to get specialized variances by going to the local police precinct and simply requesting them.
An excluded person found within the zone, who is not travelling for a variance-related reason, can be stopped by police simply for being excluded, and further can be arrested for violation of the exclusion. Violation of a Variance is essentially the same as Criminal Trespass II, and is a Class B misdemeanor.
There are two tiers of exclusions. Arrest-based exclusions are effective for 90 days, starting 22 days after the exclusion is issued. This allows individuals to take advantage of an automatic right to appeal the issued exclusion. If a person is convicted of an enumerated crime that occurred within a public place within the zone, then they are automatically excluded for one year, with no similar right of appeal.
Apparently, the city commissioned a study to determine whether there was racial inequity in the application of the DFZ statute (the study didn't address PFZ's at all). The study was conducted by taking less than one year's worth of qualifying arrests made within the city's three Drug Free Zones (Central, East, and North). The total number of arrests considered was just over 1900. The study found that African Americans were excluded more often when arrested for qualifying crimes than caucasians. Hispanics were excluded less often than both. Apparently Asian Americans, American Indians, and other racial groups didn't qualify for evaluation, for whatever reason.
It is important to note that the study didn't discuss effectiveness of the zones, their influence on recidivism, displacement related to the implementation of zones, or many other factors which would actually help determine their effectiveness.
So there are a couple of things to discuss.
First, clearly, Drug Free Zones are not enforced in an even-handed manner across races. There is no evidence that the same holds true for Prostitution Free Zones, as apparently this was not studied.
Apparently, the mayor's solution to this problem is not to fix the ordinance, but instead to throw out the baby with the bathwater. As previously noted, the ordinance is currently designed to provide the arresting officer with discretion as to whether to issue an exclusion. Clearly, the best solution to the problem of unequal application of the exclusion tool is to remove the descretion. Make issuance of an exclusion a "shall" instead of a "may." Then, presumably, 100% of all people arrested for a exclusion-qualfying offense will be excluded. This would seem to resolve the issues raised by the report.
If the mayor was interested in solving the problems raised in the study, I think that such a fix would be exactly what he would do.
So the question becomes, what is the mayor actually trying to do?
The answer is, I don't know, but it ain't what he's claiming.
Let's go back to his quote, "I have concluded that both programs are no longer serving their intended purpose and act only to suppress a serious community problem rather than solving it." Mayor Potter has drawn his own conclusion of how the ordinance is working. And, in a rather telling fashion (and in a way not inconsistent with prior poor decision making) he simply doesn't offer any support for his assertion.
Before launching into my criticism of the mayor's thinking, first I should discuss how the DFZ's came to be, why we have them, and what they're designed to do.
In approximately 1990, community members were dealing with neighborhoods over-run by drugs, drug users, and crimes in their neighborhoods related to drug use. Obvious examples were delivery and possession of drugs, but related crimes included burglary and theft by people supporting their habits, assaults committed by people under the influence of drugs or in the midst of drug-related activities, and vandalism by people who were in the neighborhood with nothing better to do while scoring drugs or selling them. People went to the police for help, but there was no particular enforcement tool to keep these criminals from returning to areas that were being impacted by drugs and drug related crime in a disparate way. Police went to the DA's office to see if they knew of an existing solution, and the answer, essentially, was no. Eventually, the city and the county got their attorneys (the City Attorney and the District Attorney) together to create a solution. The result was the Drug Free Zone.
The Zones are not permanent structures. Every three years, Portland Police, working with the DA's office and the City Attorney's office, gather statistics on drug-related crimes (primarily delivery, manufacturing, and possession) throughout the city. Where disparate levels of drug-related crimes are found, a Zone is created. If a former Zone is no longer justified statistically, it is abolished. If a Zone is still justified, it is continued (sometimes it is modified to account for changes of statistical distribution within that Zone).
Do the zones work? Interestingly, since police have had to keep statistics since they were created in order to not only get zones created, but also monitor their effectiveness, there's ample data to conclude that they do (far more than 1900 arrests over 10 months). Here are some illustrative graphs.
A couple of interesting observations. In almost every zone where a DFZ was instituted, there was a noticeable drop in drug arrests within 2 years. And, city-wide, drug arrests per-mile have not gone up appreciably, despite urban growth, population condensation and the fact that each square mile of Portland land has more people in it than when the zones were created.
And, further, note that the city-wide stats are for those areas where zones have not been implemented. As a general rule, there is not an appreciable increase in drug-related crime in non-zone areas after implementation of a zone.
In fact (though I no longer have the statistical maps prepared by the city), the city has specifically looked at concerns about "displacement." That is, people are understandably concerned that creating a zone in one place will simply push drug crimes a few blocks out of the zone. In almost all cases, the city found that drug crimes in areas immediately surrounding zones continued to have either constant levels of drug arrests within them, or just as often had fewer drug arrests in them as they enjoyed a benefit from the creation of a zone next door, so to speak.
Why do the zones work so well? It's pretty simple, actually. By having a self-selecting group of people (drug sellers and users) who engage in unlawful activities create a reason for police to be able to contact them more easily in the future, those people are discouraged from returning to areas where they are subject to increased police scrutiny. If a police officer no longer has to see you actually holding your drugs to stop you, then the mere fact that you're smart enough to keep them in your pocket doesn't prevent you from losing them. So, the druggies leave.
A similar theory holds true for prostitution free zones. By excluding people who've previously been arrested or convicted for prostitution-related activities, police no longer have to wait for the person to re-offend to remove them from high-vice areas where they are, more likely than not, re-offending.
Potter says that these ordinances only act to suppress problems, and don't solve them. I guess that depends on how you define success. Sure, by simply forcing druggies and prostitutes to leave town, we don't necessarily stop them from being druggies or prostitutes. But we make our neighborhoods, specifically, and our city in general, safer and more liveable.
In August of 1999, Richard Brown, a prominent community leader (who's also African American, although that shouldn't matter) offered the following statement to the Portland City Council in support of a DFZ in the Albina area:
When they put the drug-free zone together in Washington Park, folks on the corner of Alberta and MLK Boulevard were saying "we need a drug-free zone over here." If you drive through NE and North Portland today, you will see folks cutting their grass, you will see folks banging on their roofs, you will see folks painting their houses. Six and seven years ago, that was not going on. People were trying to move out of the neighborhood. I think the drug-free zones have improved the livability for most people that live there…In another testimonial, a citizen offered the following endorsement: “… I’m telling you the big change happened when they put [Beech Street] into a drug-free zone … it’s night and day – it’s absolutely night and day.”
What we see, then, is that Drug Free Zones (and, presumably, Prostitution Free Zones) may not solve the problem of drug use and prostitution. They do help citizens reclaim their neighborhoods, however, and that in itself is a solution to the problems plaguing many in our city.
If making an area safer and more lievable aren't the purpose of these ordinances, I don't know what is. If years of experience and statistics aren't showing that these ordinances are helping to keep these problems in check in areas where they'd otherwise run rampant, then the Mayor is blind. And if he thinks abolishing these statutes entirely is taking a step towards solving our communities problems, then he's a damned fool.
I don't think the Mayor's a bad man. But I do think that this decision is one of many that prove that he's not the right man to be leading our city.
