BEATS

COMMUNITY COURTS

Crime Blog - Dallas will open its second community county at the West Dallas Multipurpose Center. . . It is one of less than a dozen such courts in the nation. . .
"Community courts offer lower level misdemeanor offenders the option of community service rather than fines to help restore neighborhoods victimized by crime." according to the press release. "Dallas community courts manager Dianne Gibson says community courts offer offenders a chance to make restitution to the neighborhoods they have victimized and lowers the chances for recidivism. Those sentenced in community courts not only have the opportunity to participate in free drug and alcohol treatment programs, and job training and placement assistance, but they can also receive food and transportation vouchers," Gibson says.

Oregon Live - Community Court turned a decade old this year, cementing its status as an alternative to the traditional court system. The court, the second oldest in the nation, processes the lowest level of offenders: shoplifters, vandals, prostitutes, johns, public drunks, public urinators, MAX fare evaders, minors with alcohol, clerks who sold alcohol to minors and people caught possessing crack pipes with residue.

By the numbers:

More than 6,000: The number of offenders who pass through Multnomah County's Community Court in Portland each year.

8 hours: The amount of community service a first-time shoplifter who's stolen more than $50 worth of merchandise gets after pleading guilty.

3 days: The amount of jail time that offender would get for failing to do the community service or for not following the judge's orders in some other way.

27 percent: Percentage ordered to get mental-health treatment.

63 percent: Percentage ordered to get drug and alcohol treatment.

7 out of 10: Defendants who complete their community-service hours.

6 out of 10 :Defendants who follow through with counseling or treatment, as ordered.

The court was modeled after the nation's first such court, in Manhattan. . . Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk remembers chancing upon the court during a trip to New York, then returning with then-Presiding Judge Donald Londer, now deceased, because he was so impressed.

"I said, 'God, I'd really love to be able to do that,'" Schrunk says. "The idea was to do something about ... the crimes that drive you crazy."

First, however, the court system had to find a judge.

"It takes a special type of judge to do this," Schrunk says. "It's kind of quirky, and there's a little bit of theater involved. It's not for everyone. It's different. You're not slugging felons, you're trying to change behavior."

Multnomah County opened its first Community Court in March 1998 on the King Elementary School campus, processing offenses out of North and Northeast Portland. Judge Clifford Freeman, now deceased, presided.

Public defender Garrett Richardson remembers how serious Freeman was about getting the message across to defendants.

"He'd make them write out 100 times or 500 times 'I will not steal from Safeway,'" Richardson says. "It was just like grade school. A lot of people thought it was sort of degrading, but a lot of people thought that's what people should be doing to get it through their heads that they shouldn't be stealing.". . .

First-time defendants who obey the judge's orders have their crimes, with some exceptions, wiped from their records. Those who don't are thrown in jail for misdemeanors or fined for violations.

CRASH TALK

Portfolio - You might expect it from right-leaning commentators like Will Wilkinson. You wouldn't expect it from someone like Mark Perry, who lives in Flint, Michigan. And you certainly wouldn't expect to see it in the New York Times, from the likes of Andrew Ross Sorkin. But all of them are perpetuating the meme that the average GM worker costs more than $70 an hour, once you include health and pension costs.

It's not true. The average GM assembly-line worker makes about $28 per hour in wages, and I can assure you that GM is not paying $42 an hour in health insurance and pension plan contributions. Rather, the $70 per hour figure (or $73 an hour, or whatever) is a ridiculous number obtained by adding up GM's total labor, health, and pension costs, and then dividing by the total number of hours worked. In other words, it includes all the healthcare and retirement costs of retired workers.

Now that GM's healthcare obligations are being moved to a UAW-run trust, even that fictitious number is going to fall sharply. But anybody who uses it as a rhetorical device suggesting that US car companies are run inefficiently is being disingenuous. As of 2007, the UAW represented 180,681 members at Chrysler, Ford and General Motors; it also represented 419,621 retired members and 120,723 surviving spouses. If you take the costs associated with 721,025 individuals and then divide those costs by the hours worked by 180,681 individuals, you're going to end up with a very large hourly rate. But it won't mean anything, unless you're trying to be deceptive.

Dean Baker, Prospect - Any reporter who repeats this number should get an immediate 10 percent pay cut.