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| Scales of Justice |
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Posted by FoM on March 28, 2002 at 09:06:08 PT Editorial Source: Akron Beacon Journal 
The impulse to rid public housing of drugs is on target. Still, the urge must be balanced against rights of the innocent.Tenants in public housing have a right to be free from the hassle of drug activities. Subsidized housing is a benefit for which people wait years. Demand for the affordable housing is so high that housing authorities have no reason to tolerate tenants who abuse the privilege. Drug users and dealers pose a serious threat to the safety and the quality of life of tenants. It is the obligation of housing authorities, as landlords, to enforce leases strictly within the bounds of law. All these are highly reasonable points in the argument against harboring drug users and giving drug criminals a foothold in public housing. Congress and state legislatures have approved a raft of tough laws in the past 20 years to combat the use of drugs and the violence that frequently accompanies it. A 1988 federal law authorized the Department of Housing and Urban Development to evict from public housing any tenant who violated the lease requirement that no tenant, members of the household and guests be involved in using, producing, selling or distributing drugs. HUD then developed a ``one-strike-and-out'' zero-tolerance policy that permits a family to be evicted -- even if the tenant had no way of knowing that a guest or member of the household had violated the drug policy. Also, it made no difference whether the violation occurred within or away from the housing property. Harsh and inflexible, the policy has been applied in California against such tenants as an elderly woman whose mentally disabled daughter was caught with cocaine three blocks away from the apartment she shared with her mother, and an elderly man whose caretaker was caught with crack cocaine. By zero-tolerance guidelines, they were guilty because of the behavior of others. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld without a dissenting vote HUD's eviction guidelines as within the language and intent of the law as enacted by Congress. Zero tolerance for drugs may sound reasonable enough as a means to screen criminals out of public property and to ensure that tenants had an incentive to firmly control activities in and around their housing units. But is it reasonable or fair to evict a tenant who does not know that a resident son, daughter or friend is involved in some drug-related activity? As with other war-on-drugs policies and legislation -- for example, forfeiture laws that target homes, automobiles and other properties suspected to be associated with drug-related crimes -- the eviction policy offers one more example that as instruments of justice, zero-tolerance policies are blunt, utterly unfair and indiscriminate. No one questions that drug activities create an unsettling atmosphere and physical danger wherever they occur. Certainly, administrators of public housing need a strong stick in order to maintain control and security. But a law that fails to preserve the distinction between what is fair and blanket judgment undercuts respect for the justice system. The high court's ruling exposes the deep flaw in the law. The onus is on Congress to rectify it by expanding the administrative discretion of housing agencies. Related Articles: Justices Rule Drug-Eviction Law Is Fair Supreme Court Backs Public Housing Drug Ban Supreme Court Approves Public Housing Drug Ban Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #2 posted by DdC on March 28, 2002 at 13:59:34 PT |
| Subsidized housing is a "benefit" for which people wait years. Demand for the affordable housing is so high... Same Bushit Different topic. Same as saying the sweatshops kids are better than the starving parents, exploited out of their homes and land. Build more affordable housing instead of yuppie plastic rentals! We have to drill the Arctic instead of higher gas milage... Burn rainforest for Micky D to raise cattle. Poor 270,000 tons of petrochem herbocides and pesticides on the world's cotton crop, while softer stronger hemp remains schedule#1 narcotic off the shelf. Mow down trees with less tensile strength, less cellulose and more chemicals in processing than hemp... Meat takes 12 pounds of chemical grain for every pound of heart attack while hempseed is earths most nutritionally balanced food scheduled #1 narcotic the same as crack. Strip mined ore replaced by Henry Ford, shelved the same as Farbin Dupont cannabis competition Pharmaceuticals. Needing more for the side effects profits, not known with cannabis, or taxible income grown in the herb garden. Fluoridate the water without researching cause it converts hazardous waste into profits overnight. Thalidomide rebirthed in months to do what cannabis does, though the IOM on ganja still sits in the lost files of the HHS. Let the nukes go without insurance to keep from raising electric prices... Send kids to the desert to fight and die for crude we replaced 100 years ago with bio-diesel. Same Bushit deterrents getting kids raped in juvi prison. Same idiotology that perpetuates prohibition, profiting politicans, cops and corporations eliminating cannabis competition that might prove safer, cheaper and definately more soverign. Profits on misery is still insanity... Now I can sleep better knowing a senior citizen is living under a bridge. Only in Anemika! Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by p4me on March 28, 2002 at 09:49:46 PT |
| As with other war-on-drugs policies and legislation -- for example, forfeiture laws that target homes, automobiles
and other properties suspected to be associated with drug-related crimes -- the eviction policy offers one more
example that as instruments of justice, zero-tolerance policies are blunt, utterly unfair and indiscriminate. For someone that has an appreciation of the weaponary of words, I do not like the expressions "War on Drugs" or "War on Terrorism." These are not real wars. My father served in Korea and Vietnam. Hell, Korea was a war and the government was very careful to use the word "Conflict." It is really only in the last 10 years that you hear the words "Korean War." It had always universally been called the Korean Conflict. And the reason the War on Terror is a different kind of war, is because it is not a war. They just want to use the word to rally support. I use the term, "Effort against terrorism. And how about having a "Campaign Against Drug Abuse." Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood,just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.-- Julius Caesar [ Post Comment ] |
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