NY TIMES REPORTS KOCH BROTHERS MAY BE FRONT RUNNERS IN BIDDING TO BUY LA TIMES

On Sunday the USC Campus was gloriously packed with tens of thousands of Lit Lovers as the yearly LA Times Festival of Books entered its second event-jammed day.

However in the “green room” area where author/panelists and LA Times staffers gathered before and after their respective events, amid the upbeat book chatter there were grim conversations about the report by Amy Chozick in the NY Times that politically conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch may be the front runners among suitors to buy the LA Times.

The article suggested that the Koch brothers may have an edge on some of the other would-be buyers like, say, Austin Beutner, who only want to buy the Los Angeles Times and not the rest of the Tribune Corp’s stable of newspapers, whereas the Koches will reportedly bid on the whole shebang. This could be crucial, as the Tribune Corp would reportedly prefer to sell the whole bunch, not piecemeal, paper by paper.

In March the Hilel Aron of the LA Weekly broke the story that the Koch siblings were strongly rumored to be potential bidders.

Here’s a clip from the NY Times story:

Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.

The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

One person who attended the Aspen seminar who spoke on the condition of anonymity described the strategy as follows: “It was never ‘How do we destroy the other side?’ ”

“It was ‘How do we make sure our voice is being heard?’ ”

(BIG SNIP]

“So far, they haven’t seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about the role of the free press,” Ms. Mayer said in an e-mail, “but hopefully, if they become newspaper publishers, they’ll embrace it with a bit more enthusiasm.”

A Democratic political operative who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he admired how over decades the brothers have assembled a complex political infrastructure that supports their agenda. A media company seems like a logical next step.

This person said, “If they get some bad press that Darth Vader is buying Tribune, they don’t care.”

Alarming X a zillion.

CALIFORNIA WANTS ITS PRISONS BACK

The NY Times also reports on the issue of whether or not the State of California has done enough to justify taking the state’s prisons out of federal receivership. Near the end of the story, criminal Justice expert Barry Krisberg explains what he thinks it will take.

Here’s the relevant clip from Norimitsu Onishi’s story:

Barry Krisberg, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on California’s prisons who testified in the 2011 Supreme Court case, said it was unlikely the state would succeed in its appeals because of that 2011 ruling.

“He can’t win these cases,” Mr. Krisberg said, referring to the governor. “In my view, it’s nearly impossible to go to the same Supreme Court and within a year ask them the same question.”

Instead of looking only to realignment, Mr. Krisberg said, the state must consider the politically difficult option of shortening sentences for good behavior, a policy that previous governors have carried out without an increase in crime.

“If they were to restore good-time credits for the people who are doing everything we’re asking of them in prison, they could get these numbers,” he said, referring to the 137.5 percent goal.

CHIEF CHARLIE BECK GIVES “SOUTHLAND” APPEARANCE MONEY TO HOMEBOY INDUSTRY

This story is a small but sweet one. (And we could use sweet stories right now.)

TMZ reports:

Beck did a cameo for “Southland” recently … and got a check for more than a grand. The Chief could have spent the cash on scores of donuts … but decided there was a worthier cause — he’s donating the money to Homeboy Industries…..

Turns out Beck has another cause celeb … he and some of his boys in blue are lobbying for the return of “Southland” — which is currently on the bubble.

NOTE TO TMZ: We are grateful to you for nosing out this cool little story, but we could have done without the condescending donut cliché. (Just sayin’.)

DENNIS ZINE SAYS, IF ELECTED, CITY CONTROLLER HE WOULD AUDIT THE LAPD’S RISK MANAGEMENT SECTION TO FIND OUT WHY SO MANY OFFICERS ARE INVOLVED IN LAWSUITS (DOESN’T MENTION OWN SEX HARASSMENT LAWSUIT)

Here’s a clip from the story by the LA Times Catherine Saillant:

As he campaigns to become the city’s next controller, Councilman Dennis Zine said his first job in office would be to audit the Los Angeles Police Department’s risk management division to find out why so many officers are involved in lawsuits.

The city has spent as much as $50 million on legal settlements in recent years on cases it could have avoided if commanders did a better job supervising officers, says Zine, a former LAPD motorcycle officer who faces lawyer Ron Galperin in a May 21 runoff election.

What Zine doesn’t mention is a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a female officer claiming that as a police sergeant he made inappropriate sexual advances during a 1997 business trip to Canada. Zine said that the two were dating and that the officer made up or exaggerated her claims….

Whatever the situation with Zine’s own lawsuit, an audit of this nature never hurts, and needn’t be adversarial. In fact, we’d like to see one for the LASD as well.

PS: THE LAPD OFFICERS ACCUSED OF PERJURY WERE AQUITTED

This happened last week, but it bears mentioning. The Daily News’ Eric Hartley has the story. Here’s a clip:

A jury acquitted a Los Angeles police officer and a fired former officer Friday of charges they lied under oath about witnessing a drunken driver.

Lawyers for Craig Allen and Phil Walters admitted the two were wrong when they said they had seen a woman blow through two stop signs and pulled her over. In fact, other LAPD officers had stopped the woman, then called Allen and Walters to the scene to administer sobriety tests.

But the defense attorneys said the two officers made honest mistakes and had no reason to risk their careers by lying about a routine traffic stop.

“We’re all extremely relieved that this nightmare is over,” Walters’ lawyer, Joel Isaacson, said Friday afternoon. “Officer Walters had faith in the system, but it’s a scary situation to go through. ”

The two were charged with perjury and filing a false report, both felonies.

The LAPD fired Allen, now 40, before criminal charges were filed. His lawyer, Bill Seki, said Allen is “praying that he gets his job back” and will ask the department to reconsider the firing.

Walters, 58 and a 23-year veteran, still faces a departmental trial called a Board of Rights that could result in his being cleared, punished or fired. He has been relieved of his police powers and is not being paid, an LAPD spokesman said.

Here’s the back story (scroll to the bottom of the post).

INMATE LAWSUITS COST CALIF. $200 MILLION A YEAR (AND THAT’S BEFORE YOU GET TO THE COUNTY AND CITY LAWSUITS)

The AP’s Don Thompson did the math on how much inmate lawsuits cost the state.

Here’s a clip:

Gov. Jerry Brown has begun aggressively challenging federal court oversight of California’s prison system by highlighting what he says is a costly conflict of interest: The private law firms representing inmates and the judges’ own hand-picked authorities benefit financially by keeping the cases alive

How much are they making?

A tally by The Associated Press, compiled from three state agencies, shows California taxpayers have spent $182 million for inmates’ attorneys and court-appointed authorities over the past 15 years. The payments cover a dozen lawsuits filed over the treatment of state prisoners, parolees and incarcerated juveniles, some of which have been settled.

The total exceeds $200 million when the state’s own legal costs are added.

While the amounts are a blip on California’s budget, they provide a continuous income stream for the private attorneys and experts involved in the ongoing litigation. And that is the point Brown is trying to make.

By highlighting what he says is a costly conflict of interest: The private law firms representing inmates and the judges’ own hand-picked authorities benefit financially by keeping the cases alive.

There’s a lot more—about the costs ofthe court receiver’s office that has been overseeing the state’s prison health system since it was killing people so regularly that it was put in federal receivership.

The attorneys make the case that nonprofit lawfirms in particular are not exactly doing the work for the money.

Yet there is also a case to be made that consciously or not, some of the consultants, “special masters” and attorneys working for the court-appointed authorities, all of whom are taking hefty personal fees and/or salaries, may be fiscally disincentivized from calling a halt to such fee-producing endeavors as the CDCR’s seemingly neverending receivership.

As the AP noted:

In his budget address last month, Brown said the money that would be saved by ending court oversight in the mental health and health care cases could be spent instead on inmate education, substance abuse treatment and other rehabilitation programs, as well as to supervise convicts once they leave prison.

Excellent point. Let’s hope it comes to pass.

Of course, the cynical person might point out that, ideally, the state would behave in such a way that it didn’t open the door to giant lawsuits and federal receiverships.

But that’s another conversation altogether.

PS: Here’s the breakdown of dollar amounts that went to individual law firms, et al

TEXAS HANDS OUT $65 MILLION FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS….AND COUNTING

Texas leads the nation in money paid to exonerees—in part because it compensates wrongly convicted people more than most other states. But also because Texas convicts a lot of innocent people. Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman has the story.

Here’s a clip:

For a state perhaps best known as the leader in executing murderers, Texas now has another distinction: It is the most generous in compensating those who were wrongly locked up.

In all, the state has paid more than $65 million to 89 wrongfully convicted people since 1992, according to updated state figures.
And if legislation being discussed at the Texas Capitol becomes law, that tab could soon grow.

“The justice system in Texas had fundamental flaws, and this is the result,” said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a longtime champion of the falsely imprisoned. “At this point, I don’t think anyone can seriously doubt that we had a problem — a big problem.”

For a hint of how off-track Texas’ justice system once was, and how expensive those mistakes have become for taxpayers, consider the case of Michael Morton, the exonerated former Austin-area resident who served 25 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. A Williamson County court convicted him in 1987 of killing his wife Christine.

Morton, who was 57 when he was freed from prison in 2011, so far has received $1.96 million for his mistaken imprisonment, state records show.
Under a law signed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2009, some exonerees will receive $80,000 each year for the rest of their lives and are eligible for the same health insurance as employees of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, where the ex-prisoners did their time.

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC, CALIFORNIA LEADS THE NATION IN EXONEREES WITH 120 SINCE 1989, AT A COST OF $129 MILLION

According to the Wrongful Convictions Project at UC Berkeley, as of Sept 2012, California is the winner of the wrongly convicted sweepstakes. We lead the nation in exonerees (counted after 1989), with 120 individuals in the National Registry of Exonerations, zooming past Illinois (110), Texas (100), and New York (100).

It is, by the way, sobering to note that 53 of those wrongful convictions were overturned because of the Rampart scandal.

Note: The National Registry requires a post-conviction showing of new evidence for inclusion.

(By the way, just in my personal circle, I have two friends—Franky Carillo and Mario Rocha, both excellent men who were exonerated after having been given life sentences.)

In addition to the costs to individuals and their families of life lost behind bars, according to the Wrongful Conviction Project, the direct costs of incarcerating and compensating our wrongly convicted Californians so far totals $129 million.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Light posting today because I’m fluish (or whatever this stupid cold/flu thing is that’s come and gone and come again this winter. Also, I figure you’re getting plenty of Dorner news elsewhere, at least for today. And WitnessLA generally doesn’t cover the Pope—except to say that, like many, we find it very irritating that Mahoney gets to vote on the Papal selection.

FIRING THE JUMP OUT BOYS

According to LASD spokesman, Steve Whitmore, the Sheriff’s Department intends to fire seven members of the newest deputy gang-like clique to become notorious, the so-called Jump Out Boys—a move that perhaps was in part stimulated by the grand jury action on the department’s deputy gangs.

The members of the Jump out boys are part of OSS—Operation Safe Streets—the gang investigation unit within the department.

Evidently there were two particular qualities that distinguished this deputy gang from the department’s other deputy gangs (like the Regulators, the 2000 Boys, the 3000 Boys, the Grim Reapers, the Vikings and so on). One is the fact that it’s members had the bad sense to write and print out a Jump Out Boys pamphlet laying out the mission and rules of said clique.

The other is that reportedly after a clique-member engages in a deputy-involved-shooting, he (or, one presumes, she) is entitled to have smoke coming from the gun in his Jump Out Boys tattoo. (The Jump Out Boys insignia—and tattoo design— is a skull holding a large revolver with the two playing cards behind it, one half of the famous aces-and-eights “dead man’s hand.”)

The LA Times Robert Faturechi broke the story about the Jump Out Boy’s existence, last year, and he has more on the matter of this firing. Here’s a clip:

The seven worked on an elite gang-enforcement team that patrols neighborhoods where violence is high. The team makes a priority of taking guns off the street, officials said.

The Sheriff’s Department has a long history of secret cliques with members of the groups having reached high-ranking positions within the agency. Sheriff officials have sought to crack down on the groups, fearing that they tarnished the department’s reputation and encouraged unethical conduct.

In the case of the Jump Out Boys, sheriff’s investigators did not uncover any criminal behavior. But, sources said, the group clashed with department policies and image.

Their tattoos, for instance, depicted an oversize skull with a wide, toothy grimace and glowing red eyes. A bandanna with the unit’s acronym is wrapped around the skull. A bony hand clasps a revolver. Smoke would be tattooed over the gun’s barrel for members who were involved in at least one shooting, officials said….

COULD WE STOP POSTURING ABOUT REALIGNMENT AND USE DATA-DRIVEN ANALYSIS TO LOOK AT CRIME AND RECIDIVISM INSTEAD?

With all else that’s been going on this week, we don’t want you to miss this excellent unsigned LA Times editorial (which happens to be written by my extremely smart friend, Robert Green). It analyses the findings of two reports—one of which we wrote about last month, released by the Council for State Governments Justice Center, which talked about who was getting arrested within a given period in LA County. Then last week there was another important study by the Vera Institute, which looks at mental illness, drug addition and incarceration in California.

Here’s a quick clip from Rob’s essay about what the two reports together suggest:

On Monday, in a separate study, the Vera Institute of Justice reported that a large proportion of county jail inmates from two study areas — Boyle Heights and South Los Angeles — preparing to reenter society have drug or mental health problems.

More research is needed, but the figures from both the Council for State Governments and the Vera Institute suggest that many people who wind up in jail or prison got into trouble at least in part because of clinical conditions, and that many of them come out with the same problems they had when they went in.

If public resources are to be spent effectively, California must cut its recidivism rate, and to do that, it must use data to slice through the posturing of those in politics and law enforcement who claim to “know,” without facts or figures, what people, policies or laws to blame for crime. If drug and mental health problems play a large role in landing people behind bars, it stands to reason that focusing more on diagnosis and treatment could save taxpayers money, reduce the criminal burden on neighborhoods and, by the way, address some of the misery and hopelessness of those caught in the revolving jailhouse door.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES TAKE A CRITICAL LOOKS AT THE CDCR’S NEW CHIEF

While new CDCR head, Jeffery Beard, is generally viewed with optimism by most prison watchers, criminal justice reformers say there are also areas of concern. George Lavender for The East Bay Express has the story.

(I didn’t clip it as it lists a bunch of pros and cons, thus it’s better to look at the whole thing.)

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT LOOKS READY TO OKAY LOCAL BANS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA CLINICS

Law.com has the latest on this story. Here’s a clip of Scott Graham’s wonderfully blow-by-blow account:

Medical marijuana dispensaries are in danger of getting zoned out.

The California Supreme Court strongly hinted Tuesday that municipalities have the right to ban dispensaries via local zoning laws.

Tackling an issue that has vexed state appellate courts, the justices indicated that state laws blessing marijuana cooperatives shield them only from criminal prosecution under California law, and do not interfere with municipalities’ traditional power to regulate them as a local business.

An attorney for a cooperative argued that the city of Riverside has abused that power by adopting an ordinance that bans pot dispensaries anywhere in the city. “If you were to allow these dispensaries to be banned county by county, city by city, that would be the exact opposite of what the Legislature intended” when enacting the state’s Medical Marijuana Program in 2003, said J. David Nick.

But the justices sounded largely unmoved by Nick’s appeals to legislative purpose. “The purposes by themselves are not operative,” said Justice Goodwin Liu. They “don’t require or prohibit anybody from doing anything.”

“Don’t we start with a presumption that the ordinance is valid?” asked Justice Ming Chin.

“Why do we even have to indulge in a presumption?” asked Liu.

Nick argued in City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Welfare Center that California’s 1996 medical marijuana initiative and the 2003 legislative amendments establish the right to operate dispensaries in at least one location in a city. The goals of the 2003 legislation included enhancing “access of patients and caregivers to medical marijuana through collective, cooperative cultivation projects” and shielded such projects “from state criminal sanctions” under various specified laws. Those laws include Health & Safety Code §11570, a public nuisance law directed at drug houses.

Nick says in his briefs that jurisdictions all over the state, including San Jose, the city of Los Angeles and Sacramento County, are pursuing ordinances similar to Riverside’s, putting state marijuana laws “in a complete state of chaos.”

YES, WE’VE BEEN FOLLOWING THE SCARY AND TRAGIC STORY OF FIRED LAPD OFFICER CHRISTOPHER DORMER WHO HAS REVENGE-KILLED TWO PEOPLE AND IS THREATENING TO KILL MORE.

Here’s the Daily Breeze’s version of the painfully scary story of a very disturbed and very dangerous former LAPD officer who, as I type, is still at large.

Better yet, read the Wednesday night coverage by LA Weekly’s Dennis Romero, who live-blogged the unfolding of the story of Christopher Jordan Dormer, the disgraced and dangerous former LAPD cop on a tragic revenge rampage.

BACA HIRES A CUSTODY CHIEF?

Sheriff Lee Baca has reportedly chosen Terri McDonald, up until recently the Undersecretary of the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) to be his new Assistant Sheriff in charge of custody. The creation of this post to be filled by a custody expert from outside the department was among the main recommendations made by the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence.

(UPDATE: The selection of McDonald has not yet been officially announced. But LASD spokesman Steve Whitmore has confirmed that McDonald is indeed the sheriff’s choice, that the deal has been made. “She’s excited,” he said. “The board has until February 15 to object, and then it’s a done deal. She has a great resume. And, in addition to her decades of custody experience, she’s a subject matter expert on AB109 since she worked with the governor when it was being written.”

Baca launched the search for a custody head very shortly after the commission delivered its findings at it is to his credit that he has followed through so quickly.

A look at McDonald’s background shows she has had a 24-year career in state government that started as a correctional officer, so she is familiar with the workings of a paramilitary organization and comfortable with the chain of command.

I’ve only done preliminary checking around, but her reputation with CDCR-watchers I spoke with is, thus far, good. “She’s smart, moral, and works very, very hard,” said one. “Incredibly hard working,” agreed another, “and very effective at implementing programs.”

More on McDonald as we learn it.

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT SENDS OUT “MANUAL REVISION” NOTICE REGARDING WEB COMMUNICATIONS THAT IS MAKING DEPARTMENT MEMBERS UNEASY

WitnessLA has obtained a revision to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department manual (see below) that sets down policies regarding conduct on the internet. The memo announcing the changes has reportedly causing many LASD personnel worry that they will be sanctioned for anonymous postings in the comments sections of news sites like WitnessLA, LA Weekly or the Los Angeles Times, if those comments are critical of the sheriff’s department or members of its command staff.

Here are the new sections in question:

3-01/000.10 PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT
All Department members shall be held accountable for their utterances, writings, conduct,
and visual representations,including electronic and web-based communications, when
they conflict with Our Core Values, Our Mission, or Our Creed and personnel can
reasonably be identified as Department members. Personnel who cause undue
embarrassment or damage the reputation of and/or erode the public’s confidence in the
Department shall be deemed to have violated this policy.
Unit commanders shall ensure copies of Our Mission, Our Core Values, and Our Creed
are clearly and prominently displayed and maintained in the public lobbies of all Sheriff’s
Department facilities.

Unit Commanders shall ensure copies of Our Mission, Our Core Values, and Our Creed
are clearly and prominently displayed and maintained within a high-traffic work area in all
Sheriff’s Department’s facilities (e.g., briefing room) for viewing by assigned personnel.

3-01/000.15 ELECTRONIC AND WEB-BASED COMMUNICATIONS
Electronic and web-based communications include any medium used to deliver
information electronically or digitally. Examples of electronic and web-based
communications include, but are not limited to, websites, “smart” phone technologies, text
messaging, Nixle, electronic mail (email) and “social media” sites such Facebook,
Myspace, Pinterest, and Twitter; photo sharing websites such as Flickr; video sharing
websites such as YouTube; and/or any other similar electronic or digital delivery system.
“Social media” includes any electronic medium where users may create, share, and view
user-generated content, including uploading or downloading videos or still photographs,
blogs, video blogs, podcasts, or instant messages, or online social networking content.

We talked to LASD spokesman Steve Whitmore about the new rules and he said there was nothing to worry about. “This is by no stretch an attempt to abridge anybody’s First Amendment rights,” Whitmore said. “It’s just to say, ‘Be careful. It’s the wild, wild west out there.’ I mean most people are anonymous anyway when they post comments—and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “At least people believe they’re anonymous.”

Mostly, said Whitmore, “it’s just a reminder that you represent the entire agency, so behave accordingly.”

Sheriff Lee Baca has announced to the rank and file of the department that the troubling habit of accepting campaign donations from underlings is no longer acceptable.

The LA Times Robert Faturechi has the departmental memo that went out to this effect.

UPDATE: WLA has now obtained the Sheriff’s memo. To read it, click the link below.

LM003-Transparency and Accountability are Hallmarks of Leadership

As anyone reading WLA for any length of time knows, Matt Fleischer’s investigative stories for us have been hammering away at this issue for well over a year, outlining what has appeared to be a pay-to-play system run primarily by the undersheriff, Paul Tanaka, where loyalty and quid pro quo campaign donations and the like were rewarded over competence. (Not that there aren’t wonderfully competent people in some areas of command staff; there are. So please don’t start shouting about that, dear LASD boosters.)

In any case, here’s a clip from Faturechi’s story:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca told his deputies Thursday that he would no longer accept campaign contributions from department employees, according to an internal memo obtained by The Times.

Baca also said other sheriff’s managers who run for an elected office would be barred from making employment decisions affecting employees who have donated to their campaigns.

Baca’s announcement comes amid concerns that campaign contributions to sheriff’s brass by department employees created potential conflicts of interest in promotions and other personnel decisions.

“It is the responsibility of every member [of the department] to avoid any situation which may pose a conflict of interest,” the sheriff wrote in his memo.

Baca and his second in command, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is also mayor of Gardena, have over the years accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from department employees.

For years, allegations of favoritism based on political contributions have dogged the Sheriff’s Department….

EDITOR’S NOTE: A big thank you to Robert Faturechi for his shout-out to WLA in his story. With Matt Fleischer’s reporting, WitnessLa indeed broke this story and continued to point the way for the Jails Commission and others to investigate the matter further. In any case, we appreciated the shout out.

TALKING TO CALIFORNIA’S NEW PRISON CHIEF, JEFFREY BEARD

The LA Times corrections reporter, Paige St. John, talks to the man who replaced Matt Cate as the head of the CDCR.

I’ve heard good things about this guy, but I have yet to meet him. In the interim, let’s take a look at what St. John found her in her conversations. Here’s a clip:

Jeffrey Beard’s expert testimony was cited 39 times in the federal court order that capped California’s prison population in 2009. He said the state’s prisons were severely overcrowded, unsafe and unable to deliver adequate care to inmates.

At the time, he was Pennsylvania’s prisons chief. Now, he’s Gov. Jerry Brown’s new corrections secretary, and his first order of business is to persuade the same judges to lift the cap, as well as to end the court’s longtime hold on prison mental health care.

“I agree with what I said back then,” Beard said Tuesday in one of his first interviews as the new head of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. “On the flip side,” he said, “things have changed.”

California has 35,000 fewer inmates than when Beard testified in U.S. District Court in 2008, though that has not been enough to satisfy the judges, who want the population reduced by thousands more. On Tuesday, they gave the state until the end of this year — an extra six months — to meet their cap.

Beard said inmate medical care is better now, and he has more understanding of California’s sprawling prison system. When he testified, he had only been to the historic prison in Folsom. His comments then about overcrowding, unsafe conditions and inadequate care came from the reports of other experts and from his work on a 2006 state task force examining recidivism.

“I’ve now been in about 20 of the institutions,” he said Tuesday.

Beard said his perspective started to change in 2011, when he retired from his Pennsylvania post and began to do consulting work for California.

4 MORE STATES MAY HELP THE MARIJUANA REFORM MOVEMENT PICK UP SPEED

Mike Riggs at Reason Magazine (a publication which is repeatedly good on criminal justice issues) predicts that four states may be next up for marijuana reform, namely New Hampshire, Kentucky, Illinois and Vermont.

Here’s a clip;

It’s been only two months since Washington and Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana, but the advocates who raised millions to pass Amendment 64 and Initiative 502 aren’t wasting time celebrating. In addition to helping craft the rules and regulations in the Centennial and Evergreen states, they’re also providing support to state legislators who will introduce marijuana bills—more than 20 altogether—in 2013.

“While not all of them will pass,” says Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), the debates around them will be different than in years past. “What I’m hearing is that a dam broke,” says Jill Harris, managing director of strategic initiatives for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “Before Colorado and Washington, the idea of legal marijuana existed in the realm of fantasy. But after Colorado and Washington, we can have a more serious conversation.”

With the start of the 2013 legislative session, that conversation has officially begun. Incremental reforms are going to happen in the next 12 months, even if the next state to fully legalize marijuana doesn’t do so until 2014 or (more likely) 2016. We asked the folks at MPP, which was instrumental in the passage of Amendment 64, and DPA, which led the charge in Washington, which state legislatures could make big changes to their marijuana laws in 2013. These are the four they told us about.

Read the rest.

THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION MAY SURPRISE YOU

It has long been assumed by many law enforcement and corrections officials, politicians and pundits, that people on parole and probation are the biggest contributors to the overall crime rate. To put it another way, those under state or county supervision for a previous crime, account for a big, bad chunk of all new arrests.

We hear some version of this assumption whenever the topic of state prison realignment comes into the conversation.

But is it true?

The Chiefs of Police for Los Angeles, Redlands, Sacramento, and San Francisco (this list obviously includes the LAPD’s Charlie Beck), along with some other criminal justice experts and leading law enforcement officials in California, decided they’d like to find out. So in 2010 they commissioned a rigorous study to learn the reality of the matter.

Between then and now, researchers at the Council for State Governments Justice Center collected and matched more than 2.5 million arrest, parole, and probation records generated between January 1, 2008 and June 11, 2011, in those four different areas. Along with the four police forces, data and help was provided by four matching probation departments, the California Department of Corrections, and two sheriff’s department, most notably Lee Baca and the LASD.

The resulting report, which was released Tuesday afternoon, had some surprising results:

COUNTER TO EXPECTATIONS, THE BIG ARREST NUMBERS DID NOT COME FROM PAROLEES OR PROBATIONERS

It turns out that a startling 78 percent of those arrested for a crime in these four California areas, between Jan. 2008 and June 2011, were not on either parole or probation.

And 62 percent of those arrested had no parole or local probation history at all.

That, of course, left 22 percent—or one out of every five arrestees—that came out of the parole/probation pool. Interestingly, the majority were on probation, not parole. And the crime those probationers or parolees were most likely to commit was drug related.

The time period covered by the 52-page study [which you can access here], stopped just short of when California’s prison realignment kicked in during October 2011, opening the door for a similar study to be done a year or two years from now, using this one as a baseline.

BUT WHAT ABOUT VIOLENT CRIMES?

The percentages were even more dramatic when it came to adult violent felony arrests.
In Los Angeles, out of 51,749 violent felony arrests, 6,001—or 11.5 percent—of those arrested were on probation.

A far lower amount 3,653—or 7 percent—of those arrested for violent felonies in LA were on parole.

The remaining 42,095—or 81 percent—were not under any supervision.

PREDICTING THE PROBLEMS

The report has a lot more in the way of intriguing information for those who take the time to read it closely.

For instance, obviously, there is a “subset” of probationers and parolees who do commit more crimes and get rearrested—for drug, property and/or violent crimes.

So the question is, how successful are we in picking which people are the most likely to go off the legal rails again—and thus who needs the most supervision and help.

The answer turns out to be mixed. Weirdly, the systems in place for parole classification—designating the high risk people who need lots more controls, and those who are generally low risk, and all in between—turn out to be fairly accurate most of the time:

Of those on parole, the people who were labeled high risk were more likely to offend than lower risk people. Specifically, 51 percent of those parolees who were arrested were in the high risk category. The moderate risk category made up 33 percent of the parole re-arrests. Those labeled “low risk” accounted for 13 percent.

However when it came to those on probation in the various counties, all predictive powers and effective assessment tools seemed to go out the window. Only 5 percent of those probationers who were arrested for new crimes had been classified as high risk, 38 percent of the new arrestees were labeled medium risk, while 37 percent were labeled low risk.

San Francisco was the one exception. Their risk assessment methods paid off. Their arrestees were: 73 percent from the high risk category, 11 percent moderate, only 2 percent were labeled “low risk.”

WHAT ABOUT THOSE “NON-REVOKABLE” PAROLEES?

In January 2010, CDCR instituted a parole supervision policy known as Non Revocable Parole.
The strategy was, to a large degree designed to lower the prison population because, for years, approximately 40 percent of those coming into California prisons were not coming in because they had been convicted of new crimes, but because they had violated a technical condition of their parole. These “conditions” were strictures that varied from testing dirty on a required drug test to showing up in the area of town where you weren’t allowed to be because it’s where your former gang hung out, never mind that your mom and your girlfriend also lived on those same blocks—plus a list of other infractions.

The idea of Non-Revocable Parole (or NRP) was to reserve that laundry list of ways that you could land back in prison for the high risk people who needed the structure the most, and lift it from the low-risk people who were then, it was hoped, were more likely to start just living their lives.

To be eligible for NRP, the parolee could not have a criminal conviction for any one of various serious offenses (sex offenses, murder, voluntary manslaughter, robbery, 1st degree burglary), and had to be assessed as low risk.

Releases of prisoners to NRP began in earnest in March 2010 and by October 2010 there were nearly 17,000 NRP parolees in California communities.

So, how did the NRPs do? Obviously, more study is needed, but contrary to The Sky Is Falling pronouncements from many, of the 170,336 adult arrests that occurred in the four jurisdictions during the 15-month period of the study that overlapped with the implementation of NRP, 216 arrests involved people on NRP. That’s under 2 percent.

Surely there is much room for improvement when it comes to screening for risk. And we need to become more effective at helping people successfully reroute the trajectories of their lives so as to avoid returning to prison.

But this study—The Impact of Probation and Parole Populations on Arrests in Four California Cities— is a good, smart, informative place to begin the next stage of work.

So a round of applause for the 4 Chiefs of Police and 2 Sheriffs who made it possible.

AND IN OTHER NEWS, BE SURE TO READ THE LA TIMES’ STEVE LOPEZ’S COLUMN ON CARDINAL MAHONY—AND AND THEN READ PATT MORRISON’S

Here’s a clip from the column:

Read the rest of this entry »

GOVERNOR SAYS PRISON POPULATION CRISIS IS OVER, THAT FEDS SHOULD REMOVE THE POPULATION CAP—MEANWHILE SOME CA LOCK-UPS STILL RUN AT WAY PAST CAPACITY

On Thursday, California Governor Jerry Brown will introduce his new proposed state budget which is expected to have some innovative and possibly controversial ideas about how better to run the state’s prison system.

In the meantime, in a press conference this past Tuesday, Brown was also talking prison policy when he announced that the prison population crisis is at an end, and that the gaggle of interfering federal judges should buzz off and give the responsibility of running the California state prisons back to the state of California.

Here’s a clip from the San Francisco Chron’s coverage of the story:

A defiant Gov. Jerry Brown declared an end to the overcrowding emergency in state prisons on Tuesday and said that the courts should return all the responsibility of overseeing prisons to state officials.

That action came hours after the state faced a deadline to inform a federal court how officials plan to further reduce the prison inmate population by June. State attorneys instead filed an appeal requesting that federal judges undo an order that had set a limit on California’s prison inmate population.

“We’ve gone from serious constitutional problems to one of the finest prison systems in the United States,” Brown said at a news conference, where he announced that he had signed a proclamation declaring an end to a state of emergency in state prisons.

That emergency was declared in 2006 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger because of overcrowding. But since then, the population of inmates has decreased by about 43,000 to 119,200, largely because Brown’s prison realignment program shifted incarceration of inmates from prisons to county jails. Some sheriffs now say their jails are overcrowded.

(One of the finest prison systems in the U.S…? Oh, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! Improved, yes. One should hope so. But one of the finest…? Uh, no.)

While we can understand Brown’s desire to do away with outside overseers and meddlers, and certainly, we don’t want to see the courts force some kind of crazy prisoner release, advocates and experts, who are not quite the Calif. prison system boosters that Brown was on Tuesday, feel it’s important that the pressure stays on the governor and the California Department of Corrections for just a bit longer.

And, although progress has been made, stories like this one by Joshua Smith in the Merced Sun-Star remind us that there are still challenges that remain, on the prison pop front. For instance, according to the Sun-Star, Chowchilla prison for women is running at 180 percent of intended capacity with 3,608 inmates, while earby Avenal prison is running at 171 percent capacity.

Here’s a clip:

More than a dozen groups from around the state – including the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and Californians United for a Responsible Budget — have organized a rally to protest the conditions.

“These cells were set up for two to four people max, and they’re up to eight people again,” said Colby Lenz, campaign coordinator for the coalition. “They’re not enough resources in terms of hygiene. They’re not getting cleaning supplies or tampons. It’s a public health disaster.”
The protest will be held at 3 p.m. Jan. 26 in front of Valley State Prison outside Chowchilla.
However, corrections officials dismissed the groups’ concerns.

“We’re not overcrowded,” said Dana Simas, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman. “No inmate is being housed in nontraditional beds. We’ve been far more overcrowded than where we are now.”

(NOTE TO CDCR’S DANA SIMAS: “We’ve been far more overcrowded” is not a reassuring thing to say at this juncture. Yes, of course we know you’ve been far more overcrowded. Catastrophic overcrowding is what brought the state the years of federal oversight, plus a US Supreme Court ruling that said the state’s lock-ups are in violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution!)

Squabbles over prison oversight aside, we are looking forward to hearing Brown’s budget proposals on Thursday.

USING TEST SCORES TO EVALUATE TEACHERS CAN DEFINITELY WORK, SAYS NEW GATES STUDY, BUT ONLY IF COMBINED WITH OTHER MEASURES

As the argument over how to measure teacher effectiveness continues, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation weighs in with a just released 3-year study involving 3000 teachers, which provides lots of data-driven food for thought. Their main conclusion was that, yes, the so-called value-added method of evaluating teachers by using changes in yearly student test scores to measure teacher performance can, in fact, be very useful. But the study also determined that the value added model works best if combined with other methods, like student surveys and certain systems of classroom observation and direct evaluation.

Here’s a clip from the executive summary.

Despite decades of research suggesting that teachers are the most important inschool factor affecting student learning, an underlying question remains unanswered: Are seemingly more effective teachers truly better than other teachers at improving student learning, or do they simply have better students?Ultimately, the only way to resolve that question was by randomly assigning students to teachers to see if teachers previously identified as more effective actually caused those students to learn more. That is what we did for a subset of MET project teachers. Based on data we collected during the 2009–10 school year, we produced estimates of teaching effectiveness for each teacher. We adjusted our estimates to account for student differences in prior test scores, demographics, and other traits. We then randomly assigned a classroom of students to each participating teacher for 2010–11.

Following the 2010–11 school year we asked two questions: First, did students actually learn more when randomly assigned to the teachers who seemed more effective when we evaluated them the prior year? And, second, did the magnitude of the difference in student outcomes following random assignment correspond with expectations?

They found that, yes, effective teaching can be measured.

Read the rest of the photo and diagram-laden study for the details.

CITY COUNCIL WANTS REPORT FROM LAPD ABOUT REDUCING GANG VIOLENCE BY WORKING WITH GANG INVERVENTIONISTS

David Fonseca of Highland Park Patch has the story. Here’s a clip:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday stated in a dual press conference with LAPD Charlie Beck that gang crime has been reduced by 47.5-percent since he took office and that a “record-low” 152 gang related homicides were reported in 2012.

Despite the marked reduction in gang crime, Chief Beck said the problem still required is “still unacceptable” and “requires much work.”

One of the two motions passed on Tuesday, which was authored by Councilman Tony Cardenas, would require the Los Angeles Police Department to provide within 30 days a report detailing the level to which the department collaborates with gang intervention programs.

“Given the significant steps that have been taken to further professionalize the field of community-based gang intervention within the City of Los Angeles and the historic partnership that has developed among law enforcement and interventionists, a report from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) affirming the integral role of community-based gang intervention in helping to reduce violence would substantially contribute to demonstrating the overall effectiveness and necessity of intervention services during these difficult economic times,” Cardenas’ motion states.

JUVENILE JUSTICE EXPERTS CALLED IN TO TALK TO THE WHILE HOUSE AND CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE

We know the White House is meeting with a lot of people on this issue, but it’s nice to know that juvenile justice experts are among them. Moreover a glance over their list of participants is heartening as they’ve got a lot of the right people included, people like Liz Ryan, founder and CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice; Mark Soler, founder and CEO of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, and more of that ilk.

Kaukab Jhumra Smith of Youth Today has the story. Here’s a clip:

Representatives from a group of more than 300 juvenile justice and delinquency prevention organizations at the national, state and local level have met with White House staff and Congressional minority leaders at their invitation in recent weeks to provide evidence-based expertise on ways to reduce gun violence in the country, a coalition leader said.

As tasked by President Barack Obama in the wake of mass shootings at an elementary school last month, Vice-President Joe Biden and his staff have spent the last few weeks meeting with gun-control advocates, pro-gun rights groups and dozens of concerned organizations in preparation for the release of the vice-president’s recommendations for the prevention of gun violence.
According to Politico, Biden indicated today that the president could use an executive order to act on some of his recommendations, which are expected to be made public next week.

CDCR Director, Matthew Cate, is leaving his position as head of the California’s prison system in mid November. The news was made official on Friday.

Cate has accepted a new job as executive director of the California State Association of Counties, where—among other tasks—he will work to smooth out the problems in implementing the state’s realignment system as it continues to unfold in the state’s counties.

Since his appointment to the CDCR post in 2008 by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Matt Cate has dealt with a series of crises in the state’s prison system, including an overcrowding problem so severe that it resulted in a critical US Supreme court decision mandating that the state’s facilities lower their population—or else.

Cate also oversaw the transition into the realignment system put in place by AB 109—in part to make the required reduction in the population.

In addition Cate dealt with a nearly system-wide hunger strike, which has resulted in, at least the beginning of some much needed policy changes and improvements in response to the prisoners’ demands, particularly those having to do with solitary confinement in places like the Pelican Bay secure housing units or SHUs.

Cate’s tenure also was plagued by severe budget cuts due to the state’s budget woes.

Through it all he was felt to have dealt with the problems with a steady hand, and seemed well liked by groups ranging from the conservative-leaning law enforcement unions to progressive justice advocates.

CATE’S REPLACEMENT REPORTEDLY HAS YET TO BE SELECTED. However, among those rumored to be considered are the following:

*Linda Penner, the Probation Chief for Fresno County.

*Karen Pank, executive director of the Chief Probation Officers of California.

*Martin Hoshino, currently undersecretary for program support at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Our sources tell us that the first two of these candidates, while capable people, are considered not ideal for this critical position by many of the state’s criminal justice experts, all of whom are watching with deep interest to see who will be chosen.

Hoshino is less well known by many on the outside, yet even before his position as the CDCR’s undersecretary, he has more than seven years of service with the department, previously serving as the executive director of the Board of Parole Hearings (appointed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008) after having served as the assistant secretary for the Office of Internal Affairs from 2003 to 2008. Prior to that, he served as Chief Assistant Inspector General in the office of the Inspector General, which is the watchdog for the state’s correctional system.

In any case, we at WLA hope that Governor Brown and his advisors choose carefully and wisely when selecting Cate’s successor.

Under difficult circumstances, Matt Cate has moved the CDCR in a hearteningly productive direction. We would hope that the next director will be someone with the experience and the temperament to build on Cate’s progress and momentum.

NEW POLICIES FOR CALIFORNIA PRISONS’ ISOLATION UNITS GET BOTH YEA’ED AND NAY’ED BY ADVOCATES

In response to last year’s hunger strikes, the CA Dept. of Corrections (CDCR) plans to institute new policies dictating how inmates are assigned to the systems controversial isolation units, or Secure Housing Units (SHUs) and, conversely, how inmates can get out of them. Advocacy groups embrace some of the new ways inmates will be able to work their way out of isolation, but they are concerned that some of the other policy changes will shove more inmates into the SHUs unnecessarily.

California Watch’s Michael Montgomery has the story. Here’s a clip:

Under the plan, inmates are eligible to work their way out of the special units in three to four years if they complete special programs alongside prisoners from rival groups and do not engage in gang “behavior or activities.” McDonald said inmates will not be required to divulge inside information about the gangs in order to earn transfers out of the units, a controversial practice known as “debriefing.”

Other changes include new criteria to determine who can be sent to the units.

Under current rules, an inmate is automatically placed in a Security Housing Unit if he is identified as a member or associate of one of seven prison gangs. According to a policy draft released by the corrections department in March, prison gang associates would be sent to isolation units only if they were “engaged in serious criminal gang behavior or a pattern of violent behavior.” The department also would target dangerous members of any group considered a threat to prison security, including street gangs and extremist groups.

The changes will give prison staff more flexibility in dealing with a range of “security threat groups,” according to an Aug. 30 corrections department notice sent to the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the powerful union representing prison guards.

The new policies will put California more closely in line with “recognized national standards and strategies,” staving off the “inevitable litigation and court mandated changes the State would face by remaining exclusively reliant on the current … system,” according to the document.

But revisions in a June 29 corrections document obtained by California Watch suggest that officials are moving away from the narrower focus on specific criminal or violent acts. Rather, they appear to be reviving controversial guidelines that have allowed authorities to send inmates to the special units for violations such as gang-related tattoos and drawings.

LOS ANGELES SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND OTHERS MEET WITH EXPERTS TO FIND ALTERNATIVES TO ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES

LAUSD, law enforcement and LA County officials are meeting today with an Atlanta group that has initiated serious shifts in the way schools deal with minor offenses, greatly reducing suspensions and on-campus arrests. (In the same vein, Matt Fleischer’s reported Wednesday on a state-wide hearing exploring alternatives to CA’s broken school discipline system.)

KPCC’s Tami Abdollah has the story. Here’s a clip:

Rather than focusing on punishment, these methods focus on looking at bad behavior as a symptom in kids, who are still mentally and emotionally developing, and trying to deal with the root causes of their actions.

The technical assistance team is headed by Judge Steven Teske of Clayton County, Georgia, who has worked on changing the response to low-level juvenile offenses since 2003. He has helped officials in counties across the country drop their arrest rates. In his own county, Teske’s efforts dropped the fighting offenses in schools by 87 percent between 2002 and 2010; graduation rates rose by 20 percent.

CA POLLS ON ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY AND THREE STRIKES REFORM

According to the most recent CA polls, Prop 34, the initiative to repeal the death penalty, is losing (currently by 8%), but there is staggering support for reforming the three-strikes law under Prop 36.

The polls have caught Doug Berman’s attention over at Sentencing Law and Policy.

LA COUNTY SUPERVISOR RIDLEY-THOMAS CALLS PRESS CONFERENCE WITH NEW CONCERNS ABOUT ALESIA THOMAS DEATH

LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas called a press conference Friday regarding the in-custody death of Alesia Thomas. (WitnessLA’s previous post on Alesia Thomas can be found here.) Supervisor Ridley-Thomas was joined by Phillip Browning, director of LA County Department of Children and Family Services, and LAPD officials to reassure parents that there should be no fear of repercussions for seeking help when they are unable to care for their kids.

“Anytime an incident like this takes place it is not simply a matter of investigation, it is a matter of review of policy to make sure that whatever factors might have contributed to the tragic results are not repeated,” said Ridley-Thomas.

KPCC’s Erika Aguilar has the story. Here’s a clip:

“We do not wish to in any way cause anyone to feel that they should be reluctant to take advantage the safe houses in the city or to take advantage of the DCFS [Department of Children and Family Services] office,” said Ridley-Thomas.

[SNIP]

LAPD Police Commissioner Andrea Ordin said the police department would redouble partnership efforts with DCFS and increase training so that all officers are aware of the county’s services for parents.

Officials encouraged parents to use the Child Protection Hotline, 800-540-4000, if they need any help with children.

“No parent should believe that they are in this by themselves,” said Phillip Browning, director of LA County Department of Children and Family Services.

L.A. County participates in the Safely Surrendered Baby Law, which allows parents to give up an unwanted infant without fear of arrest or prosecution for abandonment as long as the baby has not been abused and is dropped off at a hospital or fire station within three days of birth.

The law does not apply to older children, but Browning said L.A. city police and fire departments are willing to take on those kinds of situations.

LA COUNTY “FAMILY REUNIFICATION WEEK” SEPT. 10-14

While we’re on the subject, LA County Supervisors have declared Sept. 10-14 “Family Reunification Week.” The celebration is in recognition of families’ safe reunions with their children and and all of the parents, caregivers, social workers, and organizations that make reunification possible, after children have been initially removed to the county’s care. (We’re glad the Supervisors are paying attention to these issues, and want to continue to help families grow healthier and able to become whole again.)

The Paramus Post’s Mel Fabrikant has the info. Here’s a clip:

… On Tuesday, September 11th, six “Family Reunification Heroes,” a group of parents, social workers, and organizations that have done an exemplary job in supporting the safe return of children to their homes and families, will be honored with a special scroll presentation by Chairman Yaroslavsky’s Children’s Deputy Lisa Mandel at the Hall of Administration.

On Thursday, September 13th, a Family Reunification Symposium, “Families First: The Road that Leads Back Home,” will feature Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky, Judge Michael Nash and Philip L. Browning, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The symposium will include a lively panel discussion with parents, caregivers, former foster youth, social workers and court attorneys on pertinent family reunification issues. The most emotional part of the program will undoubtedly be three families sharing their personal stories on how they reunited with their children. Parents in Partnership, a DCFS program that utilizes parents who have successfully navigated the Dependency Court system to reunify with their children and are now coaching other families on how to do the same, will discuss their successful program.

On Friday, September 14th, media is invited to attend a press conference at Juvenile Court where reporters can witness a unique event, similar in format to National Adoption Day, as court officially terminates the cases of eight families whose parents have successfully reunified with their children. These eight families represent over 3,000 families that reunify with their children each year.

CA PRISON REFORM BILLS ON GOV. JERRY BROWN’S DESK

A bill to prevent the shackling of pregnant prisoners awaits Gov. Brown’s decision, once again, after passing unanimously through legislature. Brown vetoed a previous version of the bill, AB 2530, last year.

The ACLU’s Alicia M. Walters has the story on AB 2530. Here’s a clip:

This year marks the third attempt to get a signature on a bipartisan, unanimously supported bill in California (AB 2530) that would ban the practice of putting incarcerated pregnant women in dangerous shackles. Similar bills have passed two previous legislative sessions with overwhelming support from both political parties, only to be vetoed. Opposition from the powerful law enforcement lobby surely played a role in these vetoes. But we have persevered, and this year we’ve been successful in keeping law enforcement neutral. While we’re happy with this progress, we still need the Governor to sign the bill.

We’ve kept at this for several years for a fundamental reason: Shackling is dangerous for a woman and her baby. It is well-documented that shackling pregnant women causes them to fall. Falls could cut off oxygen to the fetus and could lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, or fatally premature birth.

By the way, Gov. Jerry has until Sept. 30th to sign (or veto) another bill that WitnessLA strongly favors, AB 1270, that would open up media access to in-person interviews with prisoners. If approved, the bill would help shed light on areas of the corrections system that need reform. (For more info, check out our previous post on AB 1270 here.)