cP inion Page 6 Wednesday, July 7, 1982 The Michigan Daily The Michigan Daily Vol. XCI, No. 34-S Ninety-two Years of Editorial Freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Making an image SINCE ANNE Gorsuch began running the the Environmental Protection Agency, the nation's top environmental watchdog has been the object of intense criticism and scrutiny. Now, while the agency is cutting spending on its clean air and water enforcement programs, it has hired-at the expense of. $221 a day-a media coach to help spruce up the agency's soiled image. Ostensibly, the consultant has been hired to help administrators give the press better in- formation, but the underlying idea is to teach artful dodging of probing media questions. Perhaps the scheme will improve the public perception of the EPA some, but-at the heart of the agency's image problem are its lax enfor- cement and attempted gutting of many en- vironmental laws. Among the EPA's attempted victims since Gorsuch took over the agency nearly 18 months ago have been both the Clean Air and Water ac- ts, as well as toxic waste cleanup programs. Meanwhile, according to most opinion polls, an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want environmental laws weakened. If the EPA is truly intent upon improving its image, then Gorsuch will fire the media whiz and use the money to perform the task the agency was assigned. But as long as the EPA is lax at doing its job, the tarnished image will remain-and the environment will suffer. "NOW, ON THIS ONE, IT'S THE FACAE WE WANT TO GET RIP OF" )rj ' c",ez t-n Wasserman You ARE NERESY \NDICTED BY :AI.& To COMPLY WIT1 BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T YOUNN& -lTE LAW F-% DOD&lN& A DRAET A RE6T tTATI ONWE SAVE ANY TME \N A 15 VERY CLEAR 1N WE DON'T MVE... ALmos- CANCELED . WAR, WAIC WE AREN'T TR1S MATTER Fighting crime withoutthe cops 4 4 4 By Frank Browning SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Winter light was just filling the streets when Billy and Lois John- ston were skipping down the sidewalk to catch' their' school bus. "Watch out!" Bill screamed at his sister, jerking her off of the street as a car came careening toward them. But the car screeched to a halt, spun around and sped back up and onto the sidewalk, aiming at the boy. AS LOIS and Billy again dedged he car, the driverleapt out flailing a switchblade and threatened. to kill them before they ran to an uncle's homenear- by. Normally that driver would have faced several criminal charges, including assault with a deadly weapon and would likely have gone to prison. Instead his daughter and Lois signed a private "settlement agreement." Children taking the rap for their parents? A private agreement? And with the ap- proval of the police department? IT'S ALL part of a project called the Community Board Program which attempts to prevent crime and social disor- der by bringing disputants together in voluntary civilian hearings to resolve their own con- flicts. San Francisco's community boards, first established in 1977, hear complaints about everything from landlord-tenant troubles, noise and parking disputes to vandalism, drug dealing and gang fights. Their object is not to control crime but to prevent it by empowering the citizens of the community to take control of their own troubles before they turn violent. Raymond Schonholtz, director of the program, argues that the Community Conflict Boards suc- ceed precisely where the courts and the police fail: crime preven- tion. Juvenile crime is a case in point. THE MESSAGE juveniles get from the courts usually results in nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Schonholtz's Community Board alternative encourages all parties to come together volun- tarily to resolve their differences. In a recent case where two juveniles broke into a corner grocery, the board brought together the store owner, the two boys, their parents and other neighbors concerned about the rowdy kids. Result: The boys agreed to pay for the damage they had done, under supervision from their parents, and the store owner agreed to listen seriously to complaints the kids had about his treatment of them. The theory behind the Com- munityBoard Program is that conflict actually serves a useful purpose. Conflicts, Schonholtz argues, expose real but often unarticulated problems that exist between friends, within the family or among groups of people in neighbors and communities. TAKE, FOR example, the case where Lois and Billy were nearly killed. Thedriver was a father of a former girlfriend of Lois. Through full hearings involving parents and children in both families, the board learned that a feud had been building between the families for several months as a result of a fight between the two girls. Once a settlement was reached between them, the families were able to live in peace. According to Schonholtz, when such disputes are handled in the criminal justice system they leave participants more embittered than they were at the start. He calls the problem "theft of conflict." "Lawyers - and I am one," he said, "skillfully and carefully steal the legitimate conflicts out of the community and take them into the courtroom. They remove the parties physically and emotionally from whathas hap- pened and in the end no one gets satisfaction." The community boards have won growing.,support from the San Francisco police, who now refer hundreds of cases to them rather than to the district attor- ney for criminal prosecution. In one neightborhood where the boards are especially active, police noted a 15 percent reduc- tion in misdemeanor crimes in a year. IN DETROIT, Philadelphia and even New York City citizen organizations also are becoming increasingly vociferous in taking matters into their own hands. Detroit, which experienced an overall 30 percent drop in serious crimes from 1977 to 1981, has drawn national attentionforits network of community police mini-stations and crime-fighting block clubs. In New York, Richard Shapiro, director of the police depar- tment's civil participation program, has been developing neighborhood block organizations among both residents and shopkeepers. Shapiro's argument, like those of the community advocates in San Francisco, is that the people who live on the streets must take responsibility for those streets. Neighbors must take each other's troubles seriously, and together invent solutions without relying on such crime experts as lawyers, police and judges to do the work for them. Instead, the community ad- vocates contend, fighting crime has moretodo with that old line about being our brother's keeper than it does with building new prisons or arming the police with high-powered weapons. Browning, co-author of "The American Way of Crime, " wrote this article for the Pacific NewsService.