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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
As some Parkrose residents have discovered, living next to a prostitution free zone can be hazardous.
First introduced in Portland in 1996, the zones are placed in areas that have an unusually high incidence of prostitution-related arrests. Once a prostitute or pimp is arrested, as a condition of pre-trial release they can be forbidden to enter a prostitution-free zone. If they are found in one, they can be arrested on the spot. Such exclusions can last for up to 90 days after an arrest, up to a year after a conviction.
The advantage of this to law enforcement officials is that they can arrest hookers, pimps and pushers, or chase them out of their favorite territory, without having to invest in the time and manpower of making a bust that would stick in court. Drug-Free zones operate in a similar way with a different target.
One of the criticisms leveled against such zones is that crime within them tends to migrate to adjacent areas.
According to some Parkrose residents, such a situation exists today near Northeast Sandy Boulevard and 112th Avenue, just east of a prostitution-free zone. One neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, says the traffic “comes in spurts. One morning I saw a young girl who seemed to be new at this, and she brought out my maternal instinct. Another time I saw some women who seemed a little more experienced.”
Lieutenant Mark Kruger of the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct says the information is not surprising. “It’s been a problem out here for a very, very, very long time,” he told the Memo. “It’s a cyclical problem that goes up and down based on the resources we have available to devote to it.” As to the drift in location he says prostitutes and their pimps “can read maps. They tend to go where the pressure is less.”
Lieutenant Harry Jackson, an experienced prostitution fighter in inner Northeast briefly posted to East Precinct, says that another resource issue is getting the County to allocate scarce jail beds for arrested prostitutes. Without this, he says, arrests become a revolving door in which those caught are released almost immediately. Jackson hopes to see a change here. Kruger is less optimistic.
“It’s an issue for all criminal activity,” he says. “Prostitution is a livability issue but, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a very major crime. Until the County allocates more money for jail beds in general, I don’t see that we’ll have a significant change.”
Public safety officials know that the focus for criminal activity can change. For this reason, the boundaries of drug and alcohol free zones are re-examined and adjusted every three years. The Multnomah County district attorney’s office will ask the Portland City Council to approve these changes at a public hearing Oct. 26.
The D.A.’s office is recommending that some downtown and northwest drug-free zones be eliminated, as well as territory in inner northeast’s Eliot and Woodlawn neighborhoods. However, they are also calling for establishment of a new zone along 82nd Avenue between Northeast Prescott and Southeast Clatsop streets.
For prostitution-free zones, the D.A.’s office calls for expanding an existing zone on 82nd for 500 feet to the east and west. “Prostitutes are setting up outside the zone,” Deputy District Attorney Jim Hayden says. “Whether they’re doing that deliberately or not, it’s happening.”
The office proposes to eliminate everything on Northeast Sandy Boulevard west of 82nd Avenue, saying that declining activity no longer warrants special treatment for what was once a notorious red light zone. Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was eliminated several years ago for the same reason.
Would the office support expansion of the zone eastward? Hayden says there have been prostitution arrests on this part of Sandy Boulevard, but they won’t comment on whether they’d recommend extending the zone there.
Kruger says that he would recommend the extension. “It’s very beneficial,” he says. “It would help us control prostitution into the areas where it is spreading.”
Even though there are no jail beds to hold those arrested? “They are taken in for a mug (shot) and (finger) print,” Kruger says. “They may be released after that, but these women have let us know they don’t like being arrested, even for a short time. This allows us to arrest them again as soon as they enter the zone. It gets them off the streets and interrupts the cycle. It’s a very, very, very important tool.”
Jackson agrees, and says that if Parkrose residents want their police to have that important tool it is up to them to persevere and keep pressure on public officials in their own behalf. It is also important to keep in check the “maternal instinct” mentioned earlier in this story.
“Some people have said, ‘Why are you bothering that lady in the red dress?’” Jackson says, relating his own experience. “‘Why aren’t you going after the pimps?’ Well, it’s only by arresting the lady in the red dress that we can get to the pimps. Then, when the women are in the justice system, sometimes we can help them too.”
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