Updated on July 18, 2019

Portland police have unreliable statistics on arrests of homeless people and those with mental health problems and officers remain confused about their role in responding to complaints involving transients, the city’s police oversight division said in a report released Wednesday.

“The Police Bureau currently does not collect sufficient data to effectively analyze its officers’ interactions with people experiencing homelessness,” the Independent Police Review report said.

Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Danielle Outlaw initiated the report in response to an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive that found more than half, or 52 percent, of Portland police arrests in 2017 were of homeless people. The investigation pointed out that less than 3 percent of Portlanders are homeless.

The analysts from Independent Police Review, an office under the city auditor, examined a sample of 727 arrest reports involving 843 homeless people from 2017 and 2018. The police contacts were either initiated by officers or followed 911 calls. More than half, or 60 percent, of the arrests resulted from an outstanding warrant, largely for misdemeanors, or because the person failed to appear in court on an earlier arrest.

But because the bureau doesn’t have officers write reports on their encounters with homeless people that don’t end in arrests, the analysts said there was no way to determine what percentage of overall police encounters led to an arrest.

About 45 percent of the arrests reviewed resulted from a call to police and 44 percent from an officer’s initiative. Most didn’t occur at homeless camps: 45 percent occurred on the street, 14 percent at TriMet stations or TriMet buses or trains and another 14 percent at businesses, the report said.

“We recommend that the Portland Police Bureau identify its role in addressing homelessness, implement consistent direction for officers, improve data collection, and work with criminal justice partners to minimize follow-up arrests,” the report said.

The police chief has pledged to meet with the mayor, who serves as police commissioner, in the next month to clarify officers’ role in addressing the city’s homeless crisis and have the bureau’s Office of Inspector General reach out to experts to provide policy recommendations to the chief within three months.

The assistant chief of investigations also will set up a work group with prosecutors and jail officials to look for ways to reduce “failure to appear’’ warrants, the chief said in a response.

The independent analysts found that police don’t routinely record a person’s housing status in a coordinated way and have had no guidance on how to do so. If someone refuses to provide a street address, police enter “transient’’ or “homeless” instead.

Officers now are allowed to use the terms “confidential,” “refused,” “houseless” or “unknown” in the field for address on police reports, police say.

The analysts found that about half of all arrests can be attributed to someone without a fixed street address in the police records data system, most clustered in downtown Portland and the central eastside, with other concentrations in North and East Portland.

“The database has a field related to mental health, but officers do not appear to use it. Without such designations, the Police Bureau is unable to use RegJIN data to do meaningful analysis of officers’ interactions with vulnerable populations,” the report says. RegJIN, short for Regional Justice Information Network, is the electronic police records management system.

Lt. Tina Jones, police bureau spokeswoman, said the bureau in April 2017 adopted a better method of capturing data on calls that involve a mental health element through a computer pop-up that requires officers before clearing a call to answer yes or no if their encounter involved someone with a mental health problem. If yes, then further information is included in a general incident or offense report, Jones said.

Those arrested on warrants often end up back on the street, “caught in a perpetual cycle of getting arrested, receiving a court date, failing to appear in court, and getting a new warrant,” the report said.

In Multnomah County, it’s unlikely that a person with a low-level misdemeanor charge will be booked in jail, but officers still take them in to be processed. Those arrestees are then released based on their low-risk status and given a court date, and a warrant is issued if they fail to appear.

The city also lacks a consistent approach to enforcement of its anti-camping laws, the analysts said.

“Officers previously were involved more heavily in camp clean-ups and have received conflicting messages on the types of tent camping the City would allow,” the report said. “As those responsibilities have changed, officers said they do not have enough guidance on their role in the City’s strategy to address homelessness.”

Currently, officers will check on a camper’s well-being or recommend services but aren’t clearing camps, leaving that to city-hired contractors to coordinate.

A short-lived pilot program called Safe Sleep Guidelines, which began in early 2016, allowed one person or groups of six people or fewer to camp on sidewalks or other rights-of-way from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m. Tents were supposed to be dismantled each morning.

Compliance was inconsistent and difficult to enforce, and police were overwhelmed by the number of camps, the report found. The city ended the program by August 2016. Community members blamed the guidelines for a large encampment along the Springwater Trail.

The most recent Portland-area survey estimated there were 4,177 people experiencing homelessness in Multnomah County in 2017. People were considered unsheltered if they were living in a place not meant for human habitation, such as a vehicle, tent, or abandoned building. The survey also counted people living in shelters and transitional housing.

The police oversight report says that survey, done in February during Portland’s rainy season, may have underestimated the homeless population. It also did not include an estimated 9,522 people in Multnomah County who were “doubled up” in temporary or unstable living arrangements, the report noted.

Some homeless people interviewed for the report said they need to be downtown to be close to social service resources but that their visibility put them at risk for police contact.

"Unsheltered people face the unique risk of community members calling police based on their appearance or behaviors that may be beyond their control. As one social service provider said, “[i]t can be hard to have a mental crisis or even a bad day in public,' '' the report says.

Many of Portland’s construction and redevelopment projects in Old Town and the central eastside also are located where there were existing homeless communities, leading to increased conflict, the report found.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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