And oh yeah, the police want stimulus money to expand it...
This morning, Multnomah County Judge Dale Koch heard two more cases pertaining to the Portland Police Bureau's "secret list" of downtown offenders. More than 400 people are on Central Precinct Officer Jeff Meyers' list of chronic arrestees. If arrested again, those individuals can face harsher charges than those not on the list. (For more background, see earlier coverage in Street Roots.)
The city says the Neighborhood Livability Crime Enforcement Program (NLCEP) gets treatment, housing and support for addicts who would not get it otherwise, and that it improves neighborhood safety. They cite an 80 percent drop in recidivism since the program's advent in 2003.
"It doesn't necessarily mean that it's all because of us," Myers said at a February meeting of the city's Public Safety Action Committee, "but I think it probably is."
Myers has kept the list, which is compiled from blind runs on arrest data, since 2003. At the same meeting, police said they have requested incoming stimulus money to expand the program to Gresham, where they say they would focus on methamphetamine users.
"Our well is going dry" of offenders downtown, said program coordinator Bill Sinnott.
Over the last several months, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Elden Rosenthal and county public defenders argued before Judge Koch on behalf of three defendants whose drug possession arrests are being charged as felonies because they appear on the list. The attorneys say the list is unconstitutional because it is based on arrests rather than convictions, because it selects a particular group of people for harsher punishment, and because individuals on the list are not notified or able to appeal their status.
Thaddeus Betz of Multnomah Public Defenders appeared this morning on behalf of two additional defendants who are on the list. Betz argued that the list also constitutes a bill of attainder — a legislative act that singles out a particular group for punishment without trial — which is prohibited by the United States Constitution.
"A single police officer decides what is a livability crime, and a single police officer decides what neighborhood those livability crimes are going to apply to," Betz said, referring to Myers. "If you get arrested a hundred times in an Eastside neighborhood, you will never be on the list."
Deandro Shaver, one of this morning's defendants, has had 20 prior felony convictions in the last 13 years. The other defendant, Jamie Rodenbaugh, has had only one.
"The goal of NLCEP is to not let Ms. Rodenbaugh turn into Mr. Shaver," prosecutor David Hannon told the judge.
The defense attorneys want the felony charges dismissed or reduced to misdemeanors. Koch is expected to deliver a decision on the five cases and the constitutionality of the list at the end of the month.
Posted by Mara Grunbaum