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When Mayor Vera Katz presented a new, comprehensive plan to reduce juvenile violence late last month, City Commissioner Jim Francesconi made a striking observation: "You can't talk about juvenile justice or reducing youth violence without talking about race," he told the group, which included city and county bureaucrats, ministers, law enforcement officials and social service providers. With that line, Francesconi directly acknowledged the subtext of the two-hour meeting, something that the rest of the group had only danced around. Considering that the new anti-crime efforts will be focused on Northeast Portland, where many of the city's African-American residents live, those who carry out the plan would be wise to stop dancing and start thinking about the implications. Otherwise, tensions may only increase in neighborhoods where some citizens already think they're unfairly targeted by police. As Francesconi pointed out, the concern is that ethnic minorities are already over-represented in the justice system. While African Americans make up just 6 percent of the county's population, they made up more than 21 percent of referrals to the juvenile court's jurisdiction in 1996 and 1997. Part of the disparity is explained by police statistics: As a general matter, there is more violent crime in inner Northeast neighborhoods than other areas of the city. That's also why the mayor's new anti-crime efforts target those neighborhoods. But many observers will tell you that the disparity is exacerbated by a built-in bias, in which minorities are treated more harshly than similarly situated whites at every step of the justice process. That's what Francesconi, and others, worry about. "We arrest more kids from minority backgrounds," says Ingrid Swenson, a public defender who represents juveniles. "They get detained more often. They get sent to more restrictive settings. They get treated as adults more often. It just accelerates throughout the system." Given the particulars of the new plan, the number of ethnic minorities caught up in the justice system could increase. The plan has been divided into two areas: enforcement, headed by Katz, and prevention, led by Francesconi. It is based on similar efforts in Boston and New York, where violent crime has decreased. According to Assistant Chief Lynnae Berg, the Portland Police Bureau's piece of the anti-violence plan involves a couple of main strategies. First, Berg says, the cops will develop a list of about 50 people "who are causing the greatest amount of violence in the community." A "strike force" of specially selected officers will target individuals in the group, which will include mainly young men in their prime crime-committing years (ages 16 to 24). "Our hope is that we'll see them buying drugs, selling drugs, carrying a gun or engaging in other criminal activity; then we'll intervene," Berg says. After that, state and local authorities have promised to hand out the most severe punishment for the targeted group. Although Berg insists the 50 will be selected based on as-yet-undeveloped empirical criteria such as past criminal convictions, some people worry about bias. Swenson figures that the serious criminals will most likely already be behind bars. "What they have to be talking about is targeting folks who are suspected of illegal behavior," she says. "That's a concern." Given that the effort will focus on Northeast Portland, Swenson worries that police could unfairly single out minorities. The second part of the Police Bureau's plan is to crack down on neighborhood "hot spots" where violence, drug dealing and other crimes are concentrated. In those areas, police will use a "zero tolerance" approach, stopping kids for jaywalking, curfew violations and other infractions. "The minute there's a hot spot, especially in Northeast Portland, there will be enhanced enforcement," Katz said. Such talk worries Jimmy Brown, a juvenile probation officer. "Are you going to arrest every jaywalker in the city or just those who are black in Northeast Portland and are suspected of being troublemakers?" he asks. "My suspicion is we're going to focus on inner Northeast, so we're going to impact a certain segment of the population.... I'd rather see African-American young men going to school than to jail." Other community activists say they're not so concerned about the new plan, and that, in fact, they wish such actions had come sooner to neighborhoods where people are afraid to leave their homes. "If we're talking about targeting kids who are shooting people, I don't care what color they are," neighborhood activist Richard Brown says. "What else do we do? We've got people living in terror every night. If targeting 50 people will make the community a better place to live, then we need to do it." Indeed, Brown argued that a lack of attention to Northeast Portland has allowed violence to continue. In Boston, he said, "the whole city said 'This isn't going to happen here.' It wasn't just Roxbury or the areas that had problems. It was the whole city. That's what's missing here." Katz is aware of that some Northeast residents may feel like their kids are being picked on, says mayoral aide Elise Anfield. That's why, Anfield says, the mayor's representatives discussed her plan with neighborhood groups before going public with it last week. Concerns over racial disparities in law enforcement may be tempered by the fact that the new anti-violence plan involves more than cops. That's where Francesconi comes in. Though the rookie commissioner supports the police crackdown, he's been put in charge of the prevention piece of the plan, which includes trying to create job opportunities and develop more after-school activities for at-risk youth. Francesconi, who worked on a program to create jobs for gang members prior to joining the council, has persuaded a group of African-American ministers to support Katz's plan and develop new programs in their churches to save kids from violence. "Quite naturally, some people are going to be unhappy, but I think the majority are going to be glad," says pastor Roy Tate of Christ Memorial Church. "We want to send a clear message that we realize we've got to take our community back." Sidebar:
Gents, Scholars and More
Local volunteers help young black men build a bridge to adulthood.
As city officials struggle with yet another plan to curb juvenile crime, leaders of a 2-year-old community group think they've found a way to help young black men make the transition to adulthood, with an emphasis not on what kids do wrong but on what they can do right. "As a society, we have added value to being a juvenile delinquent," says Kevin Fuller. He insists that with grassroots support, "there's enough intellectual resources in the community to solve our own crime problem." Fuller is the director of Bridge Builders Prospective Gents Club, an African-based rites-of-passage program he founded in 1996. "The goal is to take African-American males and prepare them to be responsible, civic-minded men," says Fuller, who is also the manager of The Oregonian's outreach program to schools. Scores of young black men and hundreds of community members gathered last Saturday night at the Portland Art Museum for the Prospective Gents Club's induction ceremony. The annual event celebrated Black History Month and marked the official request to community elders by 14 high-school freshman novitiates to help them pursue the club's "barometers of manhood." During the four-year regimen, these "Prospective Gents" will focus on achievement in several areas: scholarship, time management, mentorship, respect, cultural awareness and community service. They are expected to perform monthly community service (such as giving food and blankets to the needy at the Union Gospel Mission), adopt a senior-citizen mentor, develop a personal plan for success, and maintain a minimum 2.5 grade point average. The program, operated by parents and other volunteers, also has its own curriculum of reading and writing assignments designed to teach culturally relevant history and develop study methods that go beyond mere homework completion. Fuller says 85 young men now participate in the program. Young African-American men and their parents learn of the program through high schools and are recruited during information sessions (known as the "call") that the club holds twice a year. Fuller says Prospective Gents attracts young men with varying interests and a wide range of backgrounds. James Miller III, a sophomore Gent, says he was drawn to the program for several reasons. "It is something positive about African Americans and teaches us about our history and culture," he says. "It's something to make you a better man--an African man." Miller says he enjoys the program's high academic standards, career and scholarship connections--and the chance to wear a tuxedo for the third time in his life. "It's the positive things brothers are doing in this group," he says. "It's giving me a perspective on life I've never considered." Although the group is not held up as a means to curb juvenile delinquency, some members say it can play that role. Carldez Thomas, president of the Gents' 1997 graduating class, says the Prospective Gents Club served as the surrogate family he needed after leaving his family in Mississippi four years ago. "I felt like I didn't belong anywhere," says Thomas, a freshman at Portland ITT Technical Institute. "Most brothers like me who don't have family may turn to gangs as a source of unity. Things like this program gave me an option other than gangs. It also gave me the challenge to be a better man than I am." Fuller says the success of the Prospective Gents Club is evident in many ways. He notes, for example, that all 11 graduates from the 1997 inaugural class are attending college. He says the club hopes to launch both a regional and a national version within the next 10 years. --Oscar Johnson,
oscarjohnson@hotmail.com |
