PSU Magazine Summer 1988

horrible." The next day The Oregonian quoted a Chicago law professor as saying " There is no unusual crime wave in Portland or Multnomah County. .." What has happened , he explained, is that crime " is stabi– lizing at a very high rate. I'm not saying it's good. It's a very serious problem that needs long-term atten– tion - and not just before the elections." Amid the confu sion, researchers at Portland State University are dig– ging into the issue in the hopes that they may someday shed li ght on a problem that has pl agu ed society since society began. D r. Ga_r)'. Perl_stein, professor of Admm1strat1on of Justice at PSU, is not your average pro– fessorial person. H e recently under– went surgery to co rrect breathing problems from a nose wrecked in childhood street fights. Perlstein in– vites ex-convicts to dinner, and the heavy smoker freely discusses his in– terest in me rcenaries and the li fe and times of the French Foreign Legion (he is an expert on terrorism as well as crime control strategies and offender assessm ent.) Growing up in New York City and being the first in his family to go to college have definitely influenc– ed his thoughts about crime. Perlstein's opinions amount to a mix of unconventional diagnoses and fairly conventional solutions. "There's a story," he said, "about a professor who was doing an inter– national study on problems of juvenile delinquency. H e goes up to the mayor of a small Italian village and asks him whether he's had any problems of this type. 'No,' says the mayor, 'we' re not ri ch enough ye t.' In Oregon we' re growing up and crime is becoming part of our socie– ty. In Portland we' re no longe r a small town , but we act as if we cou ld bring back some past time that may or may not h ave even ex– isted." (David Richie is a Portland free-lance writer.) Charles A. Tracy and Gary Perlstein Perlstein knows he is not say ing things that vote rs want to hear. But, he argues, his profess ional duty is to separate sen se from nonsense on the subj ect of crime. That is the title of one of the books he uses in hi s classes. It summari zes much recent research on the subj ect and makes short work of politicians' pontifica– tions: " Proposition 1: Most current crime control proposals a re non sense; Propos ition 2: Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of peddling nonsense about crime; Proposition 3: Most crime control proposals rest on faith rather than facts ..." ((Jte fuwe no proof that pun~hnunt as we use it changes people except for the worse. Prnon appears to rt71lke crimina~ more soph~ticated)) "What do we know?" Pe rl stein asks. "We know that rehabilitat ion has failed and we know that the 'get tough' policy has failed." The better question , he argues, is what don't we know. " We have no proof that punishment as we use it ch anges people except for the worse. Prison appears to make criminals more lrfil!1 5 sophisticated," poss ibly a college for crimin als. C rime in Perlstein 's view is more a symptom than a problem. H e believes that we are all potenti al criminals. " I tell my students, if you want to see the true offender, look in the mirror. We've all done something in our time." H e added , " I asked this guy why he got into dealing cocaine. His a nswer was, 'They offered me $100,000 a week.' With that kind of money around there's no way you're going to get dru gs off the street. You have to fi gure out a way to stop people from wanting drugs, to stop them from wanting to be artifi cially high. And that means a change in the economic and social structure.'' The main problem at the mo– ment, he argues, is th at the public has come to believe that all criminal s are dan gerous and therefore they should be locked up. Perlstein beli eves this mistaken idea arises from a numbe r of sources : law enforcemen t and corrections people campaignin g for fund s; the medi a's constant interest in heinous crimes· the politi cal salab ility of the dru gs' issue. The fact of the m atte r, he ex– pl ained, is that violent crime con– stitutes a very small pe rcentage of all crim es and that drug use rs in most cases tend only to ha rm other users. The public must be educated, he added , a bout what crime reall y is: a constant that must be held in check. " We want there to be less crime, but we can 't stop it. We want to control crime." "There are no great solutions," he explained . " Nothing in this fi eld is anythin g more than a theo ry." H e argued that we must learn preven– tion, to lock doors-the majority of burglaries in Portland are not pro– fessional jobs. We must also arrange for punishment to be swift, just and sure; there should be prison space so offende rs know where they may end up, but there should also be alter– na tives so that when they are willing to ch ange help is at hand. " There a re not enough vocational programs," he concluded . " I may be wrong in saying that rehabilitation has failed. We haven 't really tried it yet."