Pubdate: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 Source: Tennessean, The (TN) Copyright: 2004 The Tennessean Contact: http://www.tennessean.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/447 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?217 (Drug-Free Zones) CLARKSVILLE'S 'KEEP OUT' POLICY Over the last few years, several federal courts have considered cases of individuals who have been banned from public housing developments. In many of those cases, the legal question is narrowly drawn: Does government, in a crime-fighting effort, have the right to impose rules that keep certain individuals away from public housing, or do those rules represent an unconstitutional infringement of the right to move about freely and choose one's own associates? Yet there was nothing narrow about a recent case that emerged from Clarksville. The case involved Mikie Ash, an ex-offender who served time on a cocaine charge. Two years after his release from prison, Ash was charged with trespass by the Clarksville police after he tried to visit his 7-year-old daughter, who lives with her mother in a Clarksville public housing development. Despite the fact that Ash had served his time and wanted to be a responsible parent, he ended up on a list of individuals banned from Clarksville's public housing. Yet what was most irksome about Ash's appearance on that list is the fact that Clarksville had no specific standards about who should be prohibited from public housing. Both the housing officials and Clarksville police testified in court that the list was developed on a case-by-case basis. Last week, U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell ruled that Clarksville's practice of not posting criteria used to keep someone off public housing property was arbitrary and unconstitutional. He pointed out that Clarksville's case-by-case practice didn't spell out whether all convicted felons were banned, didn't have a time limit for a ban and didn't include exceptions for the ban. Courts have given public housing officials great leeway to ban some people from housing property as a crime prevention measure. Some housing developments ban former felons, including drug dealers. Campbell's ruling emphasized government's need to create those policies. But what Campbell rightly called unacceptable is the lack of a written policy. There was no way for an individual to determine whether he is banned from public housing except to go to a development and see if he is arrested. Officials must be able to keep dangerous people away from public housing. But they must also clearly define who is dangerous with policies that are objective, that are spelled out and that are aimed at a category of offenders, not at an individual. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek