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Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Media / News / Courts New Documentary On City's Secret List
Posted by Matt Davis on Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 5:17 PM
Tiffany Kimmel and Taimi Arvidson at the University of Oregon have produced a first class exploration of the city's secret list program. We first started examining possible constitutional issues in the Mercury last year. Here's the documentary:
There's also a feature article on the program at the university's website. I prefer the video, personally: It's perfect if you want to catch up on the controversies of this program in just ten minutes. Enjoy.
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Nice even-handed documentary. Good job.
Setting the constitutional questions and testimony from one person in recovery aside, there are two glaring problems.
The first is Myers et al define their project as an amendment to a "broken system." Either this is practical or cynical, but either accepts the utter defeat of political leadership to provide sufficient and appropriate addiction treatment.
Myers, if you want the system to work, apply pressure on your state legislator, not persons who cannot resist your pressure. That's what bullies do.
Second, because there is no list, there is no measurement of program effectiveness. What is offered for treatment? Harborlight Ministries? That's not treatment. Transition Projects? That's not treatment. Union Gospel Mission? That's not addiction treatment. They might be something, but addiction treatment they're not.
Cops should be the biggest advocates for drug and mental health treatment. They know it is the least expensive and most effective form of crime prevention. But allowing personal frustration and inability to effectively communicate past your pay grade has lead a handful of perhaps well meaning cops to get off track.
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