PSU Magazine Summer 1988

ning and try to figure out how to make offenders responsible to the community." H av ing lived in all three states, Bogan surmises, " that one reason crime rates in California, Florida and New York may be so high is the states are so large and diverse the residents lose all sense of communi– ty; they lose their sense of affinity with one another. There's 'us' and lots of ' thems,' " she says, adding, " Oregon is a smaller state with more willingness to see itself as a community, and people here are more aware of the economic reality involved in prison construction. But I don't expect to see these things addressed in my lifetime." On the positive side, she hastened to add , Oregon has been in the vanguard of many reforms. It was among the first to have a communi– ty corrections act and to adopt a parole release matrix (a standard to help parole boards come to uniform decisions). Oregonians are also unusual in that they report crime at .3. rate far above the national average. But with the tight budgets of the 1970s, information gathering and planning was given low priority. Hence, Bogan explained, we are now trying to make decisions without knowing much about what we are doing. Are innovative solutions currentl y being considered ? In 1984, funded by a grant from the Edna McCon– nell Clark Foundation, Rutgers criminologists conducted a nat ion– wide search for a suitable " laboratory" for a daring project– an attempt to change a probation department's organization and prac– tice while it continued to go about its business. They chose Multnomah County Department of Justice Ser– vices and the Oregon Corrections Division to be guinea pigs. Tracy was among those selected to be members of the Community Ad– visory Board . The idea was to conduct a two– pronged attack: to use the principl es of organizational development to change the structure of the depart– ment and to test whether intensive supervision of carefully selected criminals would be a good alter– native to locking them up. Unfor– tunately the first idea seems to have been too ambitious and the second proved only that an expensive alter– native to expensive prisons results in about the same recidivism (back– sliding) rate among criminals. S o, do academic experts have anything new to say about crime? Dr. Margaret De Lacy, president of Northwest Independent Scholars (a Portland-based study group) and author of Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700-1850, said that historical research led her to con - elude that we don't know much about what causes people to do things. --irsl1J 7 "There are ways to reduce crime. The Puri tan s were very good at get– ting people to behave, but it took superhuman energy and people tended to resent their efforts. Prison reformers in Lancashire, England, achieved some success, but the cost was so huge the offi cials who were responsible for the success were driven out of office. There is always a painful balance to be struck bet– ween freedom and security, and bet– ween the social cost of crime and the equall y real cost of punishment." It is not true, she argued however, that nobody knows anything about crime. "The Victorians achieved a real reduction in the crime rate. The problem is that no one has suc– cessfu ll y explained why. Was it the discipline of the changeove r to in– dustrial working, the repressive moral system, political stability, the homogeneity of the community? We just don't know." It 's tempting to side with Shakespeare on this subj ect, to en– dorse the famous comparison in " King Henry V" of the world to a beehive. In that society all go about their chores correctly, busying themselves as nature intended. The on ly work for the " sad-eyed justice" is to deliver into the hands of execu– tioners a drone who has proved to be lazy. Executing people for being lazy is not the way we do things here. But the picture describes a tension in ur– ban societies between longing for a possibly imaginary pastoral, neighborly society that is orderly if a little repressive-a Lake Wobegon, if you like-and desiring the thrill of a freer but more dangerous urban en– vironment. Perlstein may be right to argue that this tension is one reason why we are currently throwing up our hands in dismay. But finally it's not true that nobody knows anything. Crime is real. Prisons are real. The problem is that what we know is of little comfort. Declaring "war" on crime, we expect to be able to order the enemy, to make him as we believe ourselves to be: whole, sound, civil, correct. PSU