JAMES AUSTIN PLAN…MEET THE VERA REPORT

by Matthew Fleischer

The mood outside of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department was cheerful on Tuesday at a press conference announcing the debut of a report by nationally-renowned corrections expert Dr. James Austin. After Austin made his presentation, LA County Sheriff Lee Baca spoke about shuttering violence-plagued Men’s Central Jail by 2013–without demanding a new $1.4 billion super-jail to replace it. It was the first time Baca had ever agreed to close CJ in its entirety without the precondition of a new jail, and his announcement visibly pleased the ACLU members. Even some of the normally jaded TV journalists in attendance, seemed excited, as if something new was afoot.

For the variety of reasons we have reported on here at WitnessLA, CJ is arguably the most dangerous jail in America. Virtually everyone–the LASD, the ACLU, the LA County Board of Supervisors, the Office of Independent review, LASD civilian monitor Merrick Bobb, the LA Times and WitnessLA—agrees it needs to be shuttered. Austin’s plan has created a roadmap for that to happen. Among other recommendations, the plan calls for the release of selected non-violent inmates awaiting trial, the transfer of inmates to lower-cost fire camps, expanded release opportunities through the sheriff’s Education Based Incarceration program, and the expansion of capacity at the North County Correctional Facility. If enacted, these proposals would help free up enough space in the system to close CJ permanently.

Asked why he has suddenly come around to the idea of closing the whole of CJ, without demanding a wildly expensive new jail, Baca replied, “I didn’t have an Austin plan before.”

True. But he did have a Vera plan. In September of 2011, the Vera Institute released a report, sponsored by the Los Angeles Board of County Supervisors and the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, that included 30 recommendations for how to alleviate population pressure in the LA County Jail system. Many of those recommendations dealt with enacting a more efficient system of pretrial release and the blended release of non-violent offenders—just like the Austin plan.

How many of Vera’s recommendations were acted upon since the report’s release? Exactly zero. And when Dr. Austin brought up the Vera recommendations Tuesday’s press conference, he said he didn’t expect any of them to be implemented.

If Vera’s recommendations were ignored, what assurances are there that the department will take the Austin report any more seriously?

When I asked Austin that question, he said he believed that we wouldn’t see a repeat.

“This plan has four very pragmatic recommendations instead of 30. Vera didn’t apply risk assessments to their release proposals. We did. I have full confidence our proposals can work, even with the various political considerations.”

One of the primary “political considerations” at issue is the rest of LA County’s government and several of its agencies. The Sheriff’s Department is limited in what it can do without the cooperation of the LA County Board of Supervisors, the county probation department and the judiciary. In other words, to implement most of Austin’s blueprint requires buy-in by various other county entities. The only thing Baca does have the legal power to do is to free inmates as he chooses–which is not exactly politically palatable.

“That’s not something anyone wants to see happen,” says Austin.

Sheriff’s spokesman Mike Parker wouldn’t comment on what aspects of the plan—if any— could be implement by the LASD alone.

“The public wants us to work together,” he said “And right now we are working together. So now is not the time to focus on hypothetical scenarios.”

Sources close to the board of supervisors say the Austin plan is something the supes will consider, but not commit to without a lot of additional study. Supe Mike Antonovich won’t even go that far. “While Men’s Central Jail is old, shutting it down without a comparable replacement threatens public safety and makes a mockery of our criminal justice system,” Antonovich said in a statement.

If the supervisors seem hesitant, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, the Probation Department, and various members of the Los Angeles judiciary haven’t haven’t taken any kind of initiative on reform. Like the Sheriff’s Department, all had the option of embracing Vera’s recommendations and chose not to—if they read the report at all. ←–

I called Peggy McGarry, Director of the Vera Institute’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections to ask her what, if anything, the sheriff could accomplish on his own without buy-in from everyone else. “There’s been a lot of focus on the sheriff and the conditions inside the jail But the reality is the Sheriff does not control the population inside the jail. It’s the rest of the [county] system. The jail is overcrowded because of the way the rest of the system behaves. Bails are determined by the judges. [Even if Baca institutes reforms, the rest of the county system] can bypass the Sheriff, which is what it’s consistently done.”

McGarry said she hadn’t yet read the Austin report, nor did she want to comment on why Vera’s findings were not put into place.

“No institute makes recommendations with the expectation they would sit on the shelf,” says McGarry. “We were hired by the county to give them advice. Not to implement our recommendations. Inaction is always a risk.”

Even so, the ACLU’s Peter Eliasberg was confident that this plan was not the second coming of the Vera study.

“When you tell everyone they need to cooperate, no one does,” he said. “When someone takes a leadership role, it’s easier to make things happen. Dr. Austin has created a path for the Sheriff to take a leadership role. And [Baca] has made it very clear that he is ready to make this plan happen.”

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore didn’t sound so sure. “The sheriff is not committed to implementing the Austin plan,” he told WitnessLA. “The ACLU should not oversell this.”

Since last fall Sheriff Lee Baca has insisted to the LA County Board of Supervisors that the county needs to spend $1.4 billion to build a state of the art jail facility, so that the notorious and violence-plagued Men’s Central Jail can be closed and torn down.

Now, however, Baca has tentatively signed on to what many are calling a ground-breaking plan that is far more progressive—and far less expensive—than his earlier building extravaganza, yet one that it is hoped will result in the closing of the decrepit and difficult to guard Men’s Central, while employing what experts describe as a fresh approach to criminal justice policy and practice.

At a Tuesday morning press conference held at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Monterey Park, Baca stood with nationally known corrections expert, Dr. James Austin, and the ACLU’s Peter Eliasberg and Margaret Winter, for the presentation of Austin’s innovative roadmap that charts the ways that the County’s jail population may be lowered enough to shut down CJ completely as soon as 2013.

The much-anticipated Austin report titled “Evaluation of the Current and Future Los Angeles County Jail Population,” lays out in 32 pages of intensely researched text, graphs and charts, all of the elements that its proponents say are needed make the jail closing happen, while also keeping in mind public safety. The plan also factors in the state’s AB 109 realignment plan that kicked in last October, and that is estimated to bring an influx of 7000 extra inmates into the county jail system by the end of 2014.

Among the points made in Austin’s blueprint are the following:

The biggest chunk of the County’s jail population is pretrial at 45 percent. These are people who are waiting to go to trial, but have not been convicted. (The rest are: sentenced with a pending charge, 18%, sentenced, 37%)

Most of that pretrial 45 percent are in for felony charges, about half of which are violent or sex related.

However, as Austin notes, this leaves a big chunk of people who are in jail while awaiting trial for more minor charges. Many of this group are in jail, not because they are considered a public safety risk, or a flight risk, but because they simply don’t have the money or the assets (like a house) that will allow them to make bail.

Austin estimates that, by the end of 2014, the projected jail population of 21,000 can be safely reduced by about 3,000 inmates by implementing an “innovative” system pretrial supervision—meaning certain people will get out—pretrial—without having to post bail, but they will have some element of supervision to insure that they show up for their court dates.

The blueprint also calls for some reorganization of the county’s existing facilities including the North County Correctional facility in Castaic, which would be renovated to replace the maximum-security beds lost at Men’s Central, which currently houses 4,000 inmates, and the possible utilization of
five county conservation camps to increase the number of minimum-security beds. The county’s Mira Loma Detention Center, which is presently contracted to ICE, is another facility listed as an alternative option in the Austin plan.

In addition, the multi-part strategy would include another leg that allows low-risk convicted felons to be supervised in the community if they complete education-oriented programs shown to cut down on recidivism—namely LASD’s Education Based Incarceration (EBI) program, that also happen to be Baca’s pet project. (At present, the EBI program serves approximately 1,200 inmates who receive counseling and education services in order to cut down their risk of recidivism, a strategy that statistically has been shown to be successful.) Austin estimates that the EBI part of the strategy, if properly implemented, could lower the future jails population by another 1000 inmates.

The ACLU, which paid for the Austin report, had tried in past years to get the LASD to allow Austin to study the LA County jail system and to make recommendations for lowering the jails population. Always before, Baca had declined the offer.

Then after news of the FBI investigation into jail violence broke, combined with the ACLU’s harshest jails report yet, and ongoing critical coverage by such media outlets as WitnessLA, the LA Times and others, Baca agreed to let Jim Austin in. (Baca’s cooperation was necessary in that large parts of Austin’s report is based on analyses of LASD’s internal figures.)

“The sheriff has said to us that he’s committed to the proposal, and It’s a huge step,” said Peter Eliasberg, the So Cal ACLU’s legal director, speaking about Baca’s degree of sign-on to the Austin-crafted strategy. “We may disagree about a lot things, but where we can agree, we should be able to make real progress.”

The ACLU’s national jails expert, Margaret Winter, goes even further. “That Sheriff Baca strongly supports the Austin report and these recommendations indicates a seismic shift in attitude,” she wrote this morning in a blog post, “a shift likely to reverberate and help trigger change around the nation.”

Whether Baca’s cautious sign-on on Tuesday will translate into action is something that we will continue to track.

UPDATE: SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN STEVE WHITMORE, while reiterating that the sheriff was “going to consider the Austin report,” was far less upbeat in his take than the ACLU.

“The sheriff is not committed to implementing the Austin plan,” said Whitmore. “The ACLU should not oversell this.”

Whitmore said that Baca had been exploring the pretrial release option for some time, but that it took cooperation from the court system, which the sheriff has not secured. Plus there’s a cost factor and the DA factor.”

District Attorney Steve Cooley has, thus far, not been enthusiastic about pretrial release.

So has progress been made?

For a functional answer to that question it appears that we are, once again, all going to have to…

…stay tuned.

Photo of CJ by Jay Clendenin/Los Angeles Times

EDITOR’S NOTE: Starting today, the very smart and talented Taylor Walker is helping me gather stories. Eventually Taylor will be doing a story-gathering and commentary section of her own. But right now, she’s helping me curate and write these multi-story posts. More about—and from—Taylor Walker soon.

NEARLY 50 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SAY THAT TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE IN PRISON & WE COULD LET 20 PERCENT OF ‘EM OUT….SAYS NEW PEW STUDY

The Pew Center on the States has the results of a new survey out that measures attitudes by Americans about who we should incarcerate and for how long.

Turns out that the majority of Americans think that there are “more effective, less expensive alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders and expanding those alternatives is the best way to reduce the crime rate.”

There’s lots more and it’s quite interesting. So check out the summary of the rest of the report here.

ANTONIO GOES LOOKING FOR GANG PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION $$ IN D.C.

The LA Times reports that mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in Washington DC this week for a gang-violence reduction summit meeting with leaders from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, San Jose and Salinas.

Sunday, he also met with Attorney General Eric Holder, to hit up Holder for some federal money to help to fund LA’s GRYD programs (Gang Reduction and Youth Development), These were the programs that were gathered under the mayor’s umbrella in 2007, and got up and running in 2009.

Last year, the combined prevention and intervention GRYD programs were budgeted at $26 million, made up of federal, state and local monies. Villaraigosa wants the feds to come across with a good chunk of those millions.

Hopefully he’ll get the money he/we need. I just wish that when the mayor made his pitch he didn’t have to try to attribute LA’s drop in gang crime to GRYD, since even his own evaluators from the Urban Institute say otherwise (namely since the parts of Los Angeles that aren’t served by GRYD have had exactly the same drop).

Yeah, yeah. Picky, I know.

ACLU ISSUES REPORT SHOWING HOW MANY POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE TRACKING US THROUGH OUR CELL PHONES WITHOUT ANYTHING PESKY LIKE, SAY, A WARRANT

A huge pile of information gathered by the ACLU on law enforcement cell phone tracking protocols was released to the New York Times on Saturday. The report returned results that differed considerably between about 200 agencies that agreed to provide information about how they were using our cell phones to track us. Departments across the U.S. are grappling with the lack of concrete boundaries set in place for officers in regard to cell phone tracking. While some agencies state that they are only using tracking without a warrant in life-threatening situations (and sometimes it does save lives), others are using it when they damn please, including in California where state prosecutors advised local police departments on ways to get carriers to “clone” a phone and download text messages while it is turned off.

(About that text downloading function, unreasonable search and seizure anyone? Seriously, how in the world is that not a 4th Amendment violation?)

In order to get the information, 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies to ask about their policies, procedures and practices for tracking cell phones.

This is from the ACLU’s statement:

What we have learned is disturbing. While virtually all of the over 200 police departments that responded to our request said they track cell phones, only a tiny minority reported consistently obtaining a warrant and demonstrating probable cause to do so. While that result is of great concern, it also shows that a warrant requirement is a completely reasonable and workable policy.

They’ve got a point. And, given this recent SCOTUS decision, I think the SUPREMES may think so too.

LGBTQ BOX TO CHECK MAY SHOW UP IN CAL STATE COLLEGE APS…SO IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? BAD IDEA? MANY ARE NOT SURE

Within the next year, students may see optional sexual orientation check-boxes on their application forms for California state colleges. While the purpose may be to gauge the size of the LGBTQ community on campus, and thus offer better services, some fear it may be an invasion of privacy or that the information may be improperly used or wrongly divulged. The LA Times reports.

On Tuesday, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) houses thousands of prisoners in solitary confinement conditions so harsh they violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

This is from Tuesday’s statement:

While other states also use solitary confinement, Arizona has added features that seem designed to gratuitously increase suffering. The cells in that state’s supermax Special Management Units (SMUs) were deliberately constructed with no windows to the outside, so prisoners — many of whom have no means of telling the time — become disoriented and confused, not knowing the whether it is day or night. The cells are often illuminated 24 hours a day, making sleep difficult and further contributing to prisoners’ disorientation and mental deterioration.

Some prisoners in solitary spend all but six hours a week alone in their cells. Their only respite occurs when they are taken to a slightly larger windowless cell, with no equipment, for “exercise.” Many prisoners refuse to go, because the cell is so small that it doesn’t allow meaningful exercise, and because prisoners are placed in restraints and strip-searched when going to and returning from the cell. And in a final cruelty, ADC reasons that because prisoners in solitary don’t get much exercise, they don’t need much food — some receive only two meals a day….

…..…“The prison conditions in Arizona are among the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Donald Specter, executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Prison Law Office. “Prisoners have a constitutional right to receive adequate health care, and it is unconscionable for them to be left to suffer and die in the face of neglect and deliberate indifference.”

Arizona has the 6th highest incarceration rate in the nation.

The ACLU was joined in the filing by the Prison Law Office, the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and the law firms Jones Day and Perkins Coie.

LATEST REPORT FROM VERA INSTITUTE SHOWS LESSONS FROM 14 STATES WHO HAVE SENTENCING REFORM, AND INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES

Here’s a clip from the executive summary:

Most states are facing budget crises, and criminal justice agencies are not exempt. With fewer dollars available, they are challenged to increase public safety while coping with smaller budgets. This report distills lessons from 14 states that passed research-driven sentencing and corrections reform in 2011 and is based on interviews with stakeholders and experts, and the experience of technical assistance staff at the Vera Institute of Justice. It is intended to serve as a guide to policy makers and others interested in pursuing evidence-based justice reform in their jurisdiction.

Legislatures throughout the United States enacted sentencing and corrections policy changes in 2011 that were based on data analysis of their prison populations and the growing body of research on practices that can reduce recidivism. Although this emphasis on using evidence to inform practice is not new in criminal justice, legislators are increasingly relying on this science to guide the use of taxpayer dollars more effectively to improve public safety outcomes.
In highlighting important legislative

Sadly, California hasn’t, as yet, joined these forward looking fourteen. But check it out. The details are interesting.

NOTE: VERY LIGHT POSTING TODAY as my Interwebs have been down and are still behaving strangely. (Wind? Ghosts? Disgruntled public officials with garden sheers?) Good things coming tomorrow, I promise. So stay tuned.

Photo of Colorado’s SuperMax by Chris McLean/AP

On Wednesday morning, The ACLU of Southern California filed a federal class action suit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department with the idea of getting a sharp-toothed federal injunction that will force the department, at legal gunpoint, if necessary, to make the changes necessary clean up its desperately troubled jails.

The suit makes it clear that it’s not looking merely for symptomatic tinkering, that it views the problems as systemic, and that they start at the top.

With this in mind, in addition to suing the LASD in general, the suit charges that Sheriff Lee Baca, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo, and former Chief of Custody Operations Dennis Burns all knew about “a longstanding, widespread pattern of violence by deputies against inmates in the county jails” —but when confronted with the abuse by concerned supervisors (as we reported here and here and here in Matt Fleischer’s Dangerous Jails series), Baca, Tanaka and company basically told the supervisors to buzz off—and the abuse was allowed to continue.

The 77-page complaint details an avalanche of horrific alleged incidents of inmates being slugged, tased, kicked, head-bashed, slammed and, in one case, scalp-carved by deputies—with several of the reported incidents occurring in front of witnesses, or while the inmate was handcuffed, or both. Many of the beatings reportedly resulted in multi-day hospital stays and permanent injuries.

At a press conference Wednesday morning, So Cal ACLU legal director, Peter Eliasberg, and Margaret Winter, the associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project, both said they expect the lawsuit to result in a federal injunction—likely in the form of a consent decree—- that will force the LASD into “real accountability.”

When I asked Winter whether or not she thought the ACLU had a good chance of getting the desired injunction, Winter answered strongly in the affirmative.

“I have really seldom felt more confident that litigation is going to result in a consent decree.” she said. “I mean, we have massive evidence even before discovery. And during the discovery phase of all this, we’re going to get everything. Everything. ”

(Just in case you’ve forgotten, discovery is the period of formal investigation — governed by court rules — that is conducted before trial. At that time one party may force the other to produce requested documents or other physical evidence, even if the second party really would rather not.)

Until very recently, said Winter, the department refused even to fork over its guidelines for use of force inside the jails. “We tried for years to get that.”

(For the record, I know from personal experience that one can easily get this kind of information from the LAPD, while the Sheriff’s Department is bothersomely withholding about trivial things.)

“Now [through the discovery process] we’re going to open the book and go into all the dark corners of the jails and shine a light on the fantastic secrecy that’s been the rule in the past.”

In reading over the just-filed 77 pages of the “Complaint for Injunctive Relief”—known formally as Rosas v. Baca— it does appear that the ACLU already has a lot of potent ammunition to get the court’s attention.

Some random examples of the allegations include:

In July 2011, two deputies beat a handcuffed inmate about the head and neck, the beating so severe that he required hospitalization outside the jail, and has permanent hearing loss in one ear.

In March 16, 2011, three deputies beat an African American inmate until he was unconscious then carved the letters M – Y into his scalp, the first two letters of “MYATE,” (or more commonly “MAYATE,”) a racial street slur meaning “black.”

In March 2011, deputies slammed a handcuffed inmate’s head into a cement wall, leaving him with a concussion and a gash that took 35 stitches to close, then beat him around the head and face when he came to, resulting in 2 days of hospitalization and four additional days in the jail’s medical unit. The ACLU reports that were several witnesses to this incident.

In February 2011, deputies severely beat a mentally ill inmate who was in jail on two warrants: for failure to pay his subway fare, and driving without a license. The beating resulted in a collapsed lung, two broken ribs, a nasal fracture and four broken teeth.

The list goes on from there, including the alleged 2008 rape by a deputy of Frank Mendoza, who was in LA County jail on a charge of public drunkenness. (That’s Mendoza in the video above.)

These are, of course, only allegations. But there are a lot of them. And included in the filing are accounts from a list of civilian witnesses, including two jails chaplains, and a former FBI agent.

LASD Commander James Hellmold was present at the press conference and answered reporters’ questions afterward. (Interestingly, Hellmold admitted he’d not been invited by the ACLU to the Press Conference, but saw a PR release announcing its existence, and simply decided he’d show up, like the rest of us, to find out what was being said. We, in the press, of course, were delighted that he chose to do so.)

In response to inquiries about the alleged beatings, Hellmold said that he “hoped deputies would be given the same courtesy given the inmates, of being considered innocent until proven guilty.”

(Winter said later, than if any deputies weren’t given due process, she guaranteed she’d be the first in line to bring suit to defend their constitutional rights.)

About the reported “culture of violence” inside the jail system, Helmold said that there was “a culture of violence,” inside the jails, but that it was “among the inmates,” more than half of whom he said, “are in jail on violent charges.”

When pressed on the topic by a TV reporter who asked what he thought about the sign-throwing, tattoo-sporting deputy gangs inside the jail, groups like the now-infamous 3000 Boys inside the jails, he said, “I have no comment.”

Hellmold is one of the three recently promoted commanders who are heading up the Sheriff’s special task force that was formed last fall to look into the accusations of inmate abuse by deputies. (As we have reported in the past, Hellmold is also part of Undersheriff Paul Tanaka’s inner circle, and a longtime donor to Tanaka’s political campaign outside the department. We also reported that Paul Tanaka was the one who was repeatedly obstructive when concerned department supervisors tried to institute reforms to curb the deputy on inmate violence.)

Oh, and Hellmold was one of those who told the LA Times back in October that reports on jail violence never reached the Sheriff.

Bring on the lawsuit—and the discovery.

PS: Matt Fleischer and I were happy to note that loads of material from our Dangerous Jails series was woven all through the ACLU’s 77-page lawsuit. (Just thought you’d like to know.)

To be exact, Supervisor Gloria Molina tossed two G-words in Sheriff Baca’s direction during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting when she was questioning the sheriff about the Sheriff’s Department’s progress—or lack thereof—-in implementing the recommendations made last October by Special Counsel Merrick Bobb and the Office of Independent Review relating violence in Baca’s troubled jails.

Among other things, Molina and Supervisor Mike Antonovitch wanted to know whether the sheriff was able to institute a plan in which deputies would be stuck for fewer years working in the jails before they are rotated to street patrol. (The existing multi-year tenure working the jails after young deputies first graduate from the Sheriff’s academy has long been flagged by Bobb and other experts as problematic.) Molina also asked about whether deputies had stopped using their heavy flashlights as batons to whack inmates, and if the camera’s were properly installed at Men’s Central Jail and Twin Towers facilities, and, if so, had they been successful in capturing videos of any of the use of force incidents at CJ that have occurred since the installation.

The answers that the sheriff gave in response to many of the questions seemed mostly to amount to some version of “we’re working on it.”

For example, in terms of the cameras, of the 674 needed in Men’s Central Jail, according to the Sheriff’s report, more than half still have to yet to be installed or need to be replaced. At Twin Towers, according to the report, none of the 677 have been installed as yet.

As for the flashlights, the only progress made in nearly 2 1/2 months had been to schedule a meeting withe ALADS and the PPOA, the two deputies unions, to talk about the issue.

All this did not please Molina, so she marched out the first of her G-words: garbage.

“You know, Sheriff, you’re providing these reports and it’s all in the same tone. It’s like I’m going to give you all this garbage, and you can just take this garbage and shove it around however you want. I don’t think you’re taking us very seriously. I’m very disappointed.

“To the contrary,’ retorted the Sheriff. “I don’t think you’re taking what I’m saying seriously.”

But Molina didn’t back off and, instead, pulled out the second and largest G-word: Gobbledygook.

“I am [taking you seriously], and I’ve been listening and reading your reports. And I’ve asked questions about them. And that’s why we’re asking questions now. …Don’t give me Gobbledygook that you can’t get……

“I object to you referring..….” interrupted Baca…

And so it went.

(You can read a copy of the Sheriff’s report to the board on the various recommendations and actions here.)

Here’s KPCC Frank Stoltz’s rundown on the Molina/Baca verbal kerfuffle.

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT REPORT SHOWS THAT USES OF FORCE IN JAILS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE USED AGAINST MENTALLY ILL INMATES.

At the same Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Baca reported to the Supes that his own jails task force, formed last fall, had determined that deputies were more liable to use force on mentally ill inmates. He asked for additional $1.3 million dollars to hire specialized deputies and social workers to better address the problem.

Here’s a clip from the LA Times story on the issue:

Roughly a third of the 582 deputy use-of-force cases in the jail system last year involved inmates with mental health histories, according to an analysis released Tuesday. About 15% of the jail’s 15,000 inmates are classified as mentally ill.

The numbers provide a more detailed picture of the confrontations between deputies and inmates, an issue that has sparked intense scrutiny over the last few months and prompted a heated debate Tuesday between Sheriff Lee Baca and some L.A. County supervisors.

FOUR SHERIFF DEPUTY TRAINEES FILE LAWSUIT TUESDAY AND ACCUSE THEIR LASD SUPERVISORS OF TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE AND OTHER MISCONDUCT

Also on Tuesday, Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell announced the filing four lawsuits against the Sheriff’s department alleging criminal conduct and discrimination.

KPCC’s Corey Moore reports:

Terrell says the plaintiffs testified at recent depositions they saw training officers at two L.A. County stations commit crimes that include falsifying and destroying evidence and filing false police reports.

The plaintiffs claim that after speaking up about the wrongdoing, officers retaliated by, among other things, forcing them to work up to 20 hours without overtime pay.

ABC’s Rudabeh Shahbazi also has a report on the serious accusations.

(NOTE: We will have more on this issue as we get further details.)

AND IN NON-LASD NEWS—PUBLIC COUNSEL, THE ACLU AND OTHERS SCORE A VICTORY ON THE ISSUE OF STUDENT CURFEW TICKETS.

This is very good news. Here are some clips from the ACLU’s press release on the matter:

Students with tickets for being late to school faced hundreds of dollars in fines and were forced to miss more school time to appear in court.

Now Los Angeles’ top judge for juvenile courts [Judge Michael Nash] has released new guidelines to eliminate fines and unnecessary court time for students who were late to school and for other minor offenses. The court will also direct students who miss school to school- and community-based resources that are shown to improve academic achievement and get struggling students back on track.

It’s the latest step forward to reforming Los Angeles daytime curfew rules and truancy ticketing.

….Data collected by Public Counsel, the ACLU of Southern California, and the Community Rights Campaign shows that truancy and tardy ticketing unfairly and disproportionately targets African American and Latino students and their families, and results in more student time out of school and significant financial burdens on low-income families.

City Councilman Tony Cardenas has also been working for the last two years to reform the city’s student truancy policies.

Earlier this year, the LAPD and LA’s School Police Department dialed back the number of tickets written to students on their way to school.

Photo by Corey Moore/KPCC

Last week, Sheriff Lee Baca did a massive mea culpa when he met with the Times Editorial Board and told them he didn’t know, but should have known, about the pattern of abuse of inmates by Sheriff’s deputies in his massive jail system.

Okay, at first bounce the sheriff’s Captain Louis Renault stance was not terribly believable. But let’s say the sheriff is telling the truth-–or a version of the truth. More likely, what he means is that he was told that the ACLU was exaggerating with all those reports over the years, and the occasional bad apple who did use too much force had been investigated and either disciplined appropriately or, when necessary, fired. So not to worry.

We know from our own sources that there are those within the Sheriff’s Department who were concerned about what they were seeing in the jails, and attempted to alert people at the top of LASD command staff, but were roundly ignored—or in the case of Captain John Clark who tried to institute reform at Men’s Central Jail, was shut down, then moved out of the custody section of the Sheriff’s Department altogether. Somebody—or several somebodies— did that ignoring, and that sidelining.

Plus there were the issues like the multiple boxes worth of video cameras-–67 cameras in all— that were supposed to be installed in Men’s Central Jail more than a year ago, but weren’t and instead sat in a captain’s office, according to Baca.

So what about all that? What about that captain who ignored the order to get the cameras installed? What about the command staff who blocked reform and ignored the reports by concerned supervisors and lessor command staff that Bad Things Were Happening in the jails?

Shouldn’t some heads be rolling by this time?

When I happened, by chance, to speak about the jails issue this past weekend with former LA Mayor Richard Riordan, his most emphatic point on the matter was that it shouldn’t be merely the deputies who actually engaged in the abuse who were punished. “The supervisors should be held responsible, and the command staff above them. We should follow the responsibility as high as it goes.”

I don’t believe Riordan actually used the term heads should roll, but he said so in so many words.

Keep in mind that the former mayor, while fair-minded, is not a bleeding heart. Yet his tone was emphatic: Awful things were going on in the county’s jails and those who knew about it, and could have put a stop to it, needed to be held to answer.

I agree.

If change is to occur, the individuals who turned a blind eye to years of scathing ACLU reports, individual complaints, and high ticket lawsuits, cannot all stay in the same positions they occupy now. Actions—or lack thereof—have to have consequences.

Can you imagine former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton leaving in place a high level officer who failed him and the department in the manner that Baca is suggesting?
Nope. Never.

By the same token, Baca needs to have someone (or several someones) at a very high level in his command staff who has both the desire and the stomach for the aggressive reform that the sheriff claims now to want. Based on his past actions, it would seem that Undersheriff Paul Tanaka is not that person.

Baca is meeting with the ACLU next Tuesday. Both sides appear to be approaching the get together with sincerity. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that talk.

In the meantime, for true reform to take place surely there needs to be some kind of shakeup at the upper levels of the Sheriff’s Department.

LA WEEKLY STORY ABOUT JAILS VISITOR BEING BEATEN IS NOW BEING INVESTIGATED

The LA Times has a story on that story, and it’s a must read.

Here’s the original story by Chris Vogel. in the Weekly about the alleged beating incident.

The ACLU of So Cal filed a racial profiling lawsuit against Glendale Unified School District, the Glendale Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, and LA County Probation on Thursday having to do with a 2010 incident in which 56 Hoover High Hchool students were rounded up and questioned for an hour.

The suit names individual officers from the GPD, the LAPD, probation, plus administrators at Hoover HS for “racial profiling and unlawful search and seizure.”

The lawsuit is based on an incident that occurred on September 24, 2010, when, according to the ACLU, school administrators, working with police and school-based probation officers, rounded up 56 Latino students during their lunch period, herded them into classrooms, interrogated them—and in a bizarre touch—”orced them to pose for mock mug shots.”

Attorneys say that the students were targeted although there was no evidence that they were violating any laws or breaking school rules.

Here’s more from the ACLU statement:

“I was shocked and scared when I saw the police, especially because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong,” said sixteen-year-old Ashley Flores, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “It was the first encounter I’ve had with police. I’ve never been in trouble and have nothing to do with gangs.”

The students, all Latino, were eating lunch when school administrators ordered them into two classrooms, where armed GPD and LAPD officers were waiting for them. Police told the students that they could not leave until they provided information. When some protested that they had done nothing wrong, officers ordered them to “sit down and shut up,” and threatened to go to their homes at 6 a.m. to collect the information if they did not cooperate. The officers told students that their personal information would be kept in a file to identify them if they ever got in trouble. The students were detained between 30 and 90 minutes, causing some to miss their fifth-period classes.

“The police officers, school officials, and probation officers involved in this roundup targeted these students solely because they are Latino,” said David Sapp, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. “They acted as though being a Latino teenager is all the justification they needed to detain and threaten these students, which is a textbook case of racial profiling.”

One student who was eating lunch with the others, who is not Latino, was not detained in the classrooms.

Additionally, after the incident, Defendant Michael Rock, a captain in GPD who authorized the roundup, acknowledged that the students’ ethnicity was central in determining which students were detained, adding that GPD had planned to conduct a similar operation targeting Armenian students. [Italics mine.]

Nice.

The lawsuit sounds righteous, and there’s no excuse for racially profiling and terrorizing kids, yet it might help to have this bit of context:

According to the school website, Hoover High’s student population is around 42 percent Armenian American, and around one quarter Latino. In recent years, elements within the two ethnic groups have sometimes been violently at odds. The most tragic such event occurred in May of 2000 when 17-year-old Raul Aguirre was beaten with a crowbar then stabbed to death in front of the school just after classes ended for the day. Raul Aguirre, it seemed, was a non-troublemaker kid who had tried to intervene in a fight between the two ethnic factions, and was murdered for his trouble.

In any case, one assumes that there’s more to the story. Again, not that anything excuses the actions of the adults. However, additional information might at least, in part, explain the thinking of the cops and the Hoover High administrators.

AND IN OTHER NEWS:

CDCR SAYS CALIFORNIA’S PRISON HUNGER STRIKE HAS ENDED

The CDCR reported on Thursday that the mass hunger strike in the state’s prisons has ended. This is from their statement:

CDCR officials in Sacramento were contacted by inmates by letter on October 11. It was the first such contact by inmates or their representatives during the inmate-led action.

Officials agreed to meet with inmate representatives to discuss its ongoing review of and revisions to its Security Housing Unit (SHU) policies that began in May 2011. Similar to its discussions with inmates during a July hunger strike, all agreed the changes to policies would take several months to finalize. The department agreed to continue on its same course.

Inmates initiated a second hunger strike on September 26, and after three days, 4,252 inmates in eight state prisons had missed nine consecutive meals – the point at which CDCR considers an inmate to be on a hunger strike….

Last Friday, Ian Lovett reported for the NY Times that, unlike with the first strike in the summer, this time the hunger strikers were dug in and prepared to last as long as it took to get some of their demands met, so the change was unexpected.

Here’s a clip from last week’s story:

….since inmates resumed the strike last week in continued protest against conditions of prolonged isolation, things have gone differently: the corrections department has cracked down, trying to isolate the strike leaders, some of whom say they no longer trust the department and are hoping to push the governor to enact reforms.

“I’m ready to take this all the way,” J. Angel Martinez, one of the strike leaders at Pelican Bay State Prison, said in a message conveyed through a lawyer this week. “We are sick and tired of living like this and willing to die if that’s what it takes.”

This time, though, both sides have shown less inclination to compromise, and no negotiations between the strike leaders and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have taken place since the strike resumed.

An internal memo from George J. Giurbino, director of the Division of Adult Institutions for the department, outlined new, more aggressive processes for dealing with mass hunger strikes….

However, on Thursday, Lovett reported on how and why the strikers had agreed to begin eating again. Here’s a clip:

…after negotiations on Thursday between the corrections department and lawyers representing the inmates, strike leaders agreed to resume eating.

Corrections officials reiterated the reforms the department had agreed to at the end of the previous hunger strike in July, which they said would take several months to finalize, and “agreed to stay on its same course,” according to a news release from the department.

The department had already agreed to a review of its policies for placing inmates in security housing units.

But Carol Strickman, a lawyer with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children who negotiated on behalf of the inmates, said that, most importantly, the department had agreed to review the cases of all prisoners already in isolation because of “validated” gang affiliation, rather than because of their behavior while in prison.

“This is the first time the prisoners had heard that kind of review was in the works,” Ms. Strickman said. “That new information, I believe, convinced them to end the hunger strike.”

In his most recent report on the jails, Michael Gennaco, head of LA County’s Office of Independent Review (OIR), details 12 incidents, in relation to which, a total of more than 30 jail employees have been fired or suspended for either abusing inmates or helping to cover up abuse they witnessed. (The report, which WitnessLA has obtained, is to be released publicly at noon on Thursday.)

In one case Gennaco describes, blows to an unconscious inmate resulted in “significant injuries requiring surgery, including brain swelling.”

In another, three deputies “assaulted the inmate resulting in a fractured cheekbone and injuries to his ribs.” The deputies then “left the inmate in a cell without medical attention.”

In a third, a deputy and a custody assistant beat a mentally ill inmate with flashlights. Although the injured inmate’s head bled profusely and needed sutures, none of the four employees who participated in or witnessed the assault took him for medical care. Instead, the custody assistant simply told a second inmate, a “trustee,” to clean up the mentally ill man’s bloody cell.

In addition to the recounting of the individual instances of abuse, Gennaco’s report includes observations regarding larger, systemic issues regarding the jails that merit concern.

Here are a few excerpts from the report’s notable points:

INSTANCES OF DEPUTIES ABUSING INMATES AND NOT GETTING CAUGHT ON THE RISE?

“One troubling aspect of our initial review of the recent ACLU report is that the times in which deputies “get away” with using excessive force may be on the rise.”

SLACK HIRING STANDARDS MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO EXCESSIVE FORCE CASES

“Over two years ago, OIR took the Department to task for not following LASD’s own hiring standards the last time there was an uptick in hiring. Some of these hires are responsible for the excessive force cases that have occurred in the jails.”

PREVIOUS JAILS REFORMS THWARTED

“Over the years, there have been proposals to address jail violence issues systemically that did not take root. For example, a proposal to rotate employee jail assignments was initially approved but scotched by Department executives when deputies complained about it. A related plan to place first line supervisors inside the modules was also halted despite initial positive signs of a reduction in force in the areas in which it was implemented.”

[Editor's Note: The above belies the Sheriff's contention on Tuesday night's Which Way LA? broadcast that Undersheriff Paul Tanaka acted appropriately when Tanaka blocked 2006 reform efforts that would have helped to break up the problematic deputy gang-like cliques inside Men's Central Jail.]

JAIL SUPERVISORS MAY HAVE KNOWN ABOUT “GANGLIKE” DEPUTIES’ BEHAVIOR AND DONE NOTHING

“Perhaps most concerning [About last year's Christmas party incident] is the evidence that jail supervisors apparently knew about the use of “gang-like” signs and other troubling behavior well before the eruption of violence at the Christmas party. OIR believed that while the assault was clearly propelled by alcohol, some LASD executives were too swift to conclude that intoxication was the sole cause of the incident.”

The initial full 26-page report may be accessed HERE— with an updated version HERE.

FRUSTRATION OVER CASES THAT CAN’T BE PROVED

When I spoke to Gennaco on Wednesday night about his findings, he expressed frustration about a number of matters the report contained.

“I see this report as a bad news/good news/bad news story,” he said. “It’s not good that deputies are using excessive force. But when it does happen, when it can be proven, obviously that’s a good thing.

“In too many cases we can’t prove it,” he said.

That’s why, Gennaco said, he is ardently in favor of a comprehensive system of video cameras being installed in the jails. He then cited a case of an inmate beating involving nine deputies in the county’s East Facility jail located in Castaic, near Magic Mountain. “We were able to prove it, and discipline nine people, because we had a video. Otherwise it would have been a case of he said/he said. A video is an evidentiary tie-breaker.”

Although there are some cameras in a few of the jails, inside Men’s Central Jail (CJ), the facility where most of the recently reported alleged abuse has taken place, there’s almost nothing.

Recently, Sheriff Lee Baca told The LA Times that he planned to install 69 video cameras inside CJ by the end of the year.

However, according to WitnessLA’s Dangerous Jails report by Matt Fleisher, back in 2006, a $12 million plan was drawn up for a closed-circuit surveillance system that would have caused 1,200 cameras to be installed inside CJ. But the plan that was subsequently abandoned.

“It’s taken way too long for these cameras to get in,” said Gennaco. “We also need them in Twin Towers, which is where we have most of the mentally ill inmates.” Too often when there’s a report of excessive use of force at Twin Towers, he said, the mentally ill inmate isn’t capable of explaining to Gennaco’s investigators what has happened. “That’s why cameras are so important.”

“LOW LEVEL FORCE”

Gennaco was also bothered by the difficulty of proving occurrences of what he described as “low level force.”

“These are incidents that don’t trigger injuries—or major injuries. Maybe it’s a case where a deputy just shoves an inmate hard. But those incidents are important. You want to catch that one shove.”

He explained that the one shove, if not caught, may lead an otherwise good deputy into a pattern of escalating behavior. “And it doesn’t just affect the person who did the shoving. It also affects those who saw it and didn’t report it.” Nipping those incidents in the bud is critical to reform, said Gennaco.

On the topic of reform, I asked him what he thought about the FBI probe and the other recent revelations of abuse.

“Sometimes it takes a fulcrum of events to cause real change.”

So, did he think we had reached the necessary fulcrum now?

At first Gennaco didn’t answer directly. “I’m glad that everything is getting out on the table,” he said.

I pressed.

“Well, I haven’t seen this much attention paid to a public agency and not had reform result.”

“Look,” Gennaco said just before we rang off, “nobody likes to think about the jails and the prisons. But we have to think about them: A society is only as good as the way we treat our most vulnerable individuals.”

Like inmates.

“Like inmates.”

NOTE: Gennaco also reportedly intends to ask the FBI and the US Attorney to help create a system by which the Feds “independently review the Sheriff Department’s internal investigations of excessive force and other misconduct.”

Frank Stolze of KPCC has a good interview with Gennaco this morning.

On Tuesday morning, both the LA Times editorial board and WitnessLA called for the LA County Supervisors to appoint an independent civilian commission—a la the Christopher Commission (which looked into LAPD practices post Rodney King)—to investigate the civil rights mess that is occurring in the County’s jails facilities.

On Which Way LA? Tuesday night, after I brought the matter up, Sheriff Baca said he would welcome civilians investigating—or words to that effect. He even mentioned some people he’d like to see on such a team. Loyola Law School prof, Laurie Levenson, was among those whom he named.

But will the Board of Supervisors step up and create the commission?

Some Board insiders I polled said that that is unlikely that an independent commission would happen, that budgetary concerns would stand in the way.

“There just isn’t the money for it,” said one source.

No money? Um, what about the $1.4 billion plan the Sheriff just pitched on Tuesday to demolish and rebuild Men’s Central Jail downtown, plus a second new jail for women inmates at Pitchess Detention Center. (Fox news has more on the jails pitch.)

The Supervisors are in a position to take a much needed leadership role by appointing an independent commission —-which is really not a terribly expensive proposition. (Heck, just shave a single million off that $1.3 billion jail construction pricetag.)

Unfortunately, thus far the Board has been missing in action on the topic of the jails scandal in general.

Of course, a civilian commission alone can’t force reform in the culture and practices of LA County’s Jails . It is also important that the existing FBI probe into deputy abuse be expanded substantially. Then, once the Feds have finished their investigation, with any luck the Department of Justice will impose a Federal Consent Decree—which is essentially a legally binding plea bargain that imposes a list of strict conditions, plus a timetable under which they must be met.

(The Federal Consent Decree imposed on the LAPD, was much of what made it possible for LA’s once-ailing police culture to reform itself.)

No one can guarantee what the FBI and the Department of Justice will do. Yet, it is fully within the power of the LA County Board of Supervisors to appoint that much-needed independent commission.

Inmates rights are being violated on the Board’s watch. Doing something proactive about the jails abuse scandal is a part of their job.

PS: Someone like John Van de Kamp might be a good person to lead such an endeavor.

Or how about Bill Lann Lee, the civil rights attorney who was the Assistant Attorney General for the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under Bill Clinton?

The possibilities are many.

AND ON OTHER TOPICS…

LAUSD AGREES TO MAKE CHANGES IN HOW IT TEACHERS ENGLISH LEARNERS AND BLACKS

The LA Times’ Howard Blume has the story.

Wednesday’s LA Times has an Op Ed about realignment that is so smart and dead on that it made me a little dizzy.

It’s written by former federal prosecutor (and present USC adjunct law professor), Jonathan Shapiro. Here’s a clip:

Rather than complain, L.A. leaders ought to lead. If done right, realignment could revolutionize and repair the incarceration-only policies that have led to both the nation’s highest costs per inmate and the nation’s highest state recidivism rate.

Public safety means more than simply jailing offenders. It requires problem-solving courts, the creative use of electronic monitoring and more intensive oversight when offenders have done their time. It means evidence-based, cost-effective strategies such as day-reporting centers, where former offenders must participate in programs during the day but return home at night, and “flash” incarceration, an immediate but short return to jail following a probation violation. It also means drug and mental health treatment for offenders and ex-offenders, as well as education and job training.

To be sure, this is a tough time for Los Angeles County. Its Probation Department is in a period of transition, its Sheriff’s Department is being investigated for excessive force against the offenders it already houses, and budgets are being cut. But however difficult the times and however challenging change is, L.A. County and the rest of California no longer have the luxury of pandering to “tough on crime” policies that have proved ineffective and too expensive to sustain.

Realignment has arrived. Former offenders are already trickling back to L.A. and into county hands. New offenders are being charged. The Los Angeles law enforcement community and the county Board of Supervisors should embrace their new role as a historic opportunity. Public safety is in their hands now more than ever.