PROBATION CHIEF CALLS FOR MORE “SPLIT SENTENCES”

In a realignment progress report to the LA County Board of Supervisors, LA County Chief of Probation Jerry Powers recommended that judges hand out more “split sentences,” so that state inmates serving time in county jails under realignment also have to submit to probation supervision once released.

The LA Times’ Abby Sewell has the story. Here’s a clip:

Without that, Chief of Probation Jerry Powers told county supervisors Tuesday, officials have no ability to make sure the inmates get into substance abuse treatment and other programs once released from behind bars.

Powers’ comments came as he joined with public health officials in a progress report on the realignment program. Law enforcement officials said they continue to struggle with offenders who abscond after being released to county probation supervision.

Under the program – devised to reduce state prison overcrowding per court order — certain nonviolent offenders who previously would have served in state penitentiaries are now sentenced to county jail, and those serving state prison sentences are released to county probation supervision instead of state parole.

About 4% of felons sentenced to Los Angeles County jails are given split sentences, under which the time they would otherwise spend in jail is split between jail and probation. But most felons who serve their full term in jail are not required to submit to probation supervision.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this is a concept unknown to most Californians, we thought a little bit more explanation might be helpful. Basically, “split sentencing” is one of two possible sanctions to be given those low-level offenders who, under AB109, now will do their time in county jail rather than going to state prison. It works like this: those convicted can either do their full sentence in lock-up with no “tail” of probation supervision afterward. Or their sentence may be “split” into half jail time, half on probation where they are monitored and, ideally, helped and given treatment as they make their way back into community life.

Statewide, 24 percent of the AB109-ers get split sentencing. San Francisco County gives nearly half of its realignment inmates split sentencing. Contra Costa and San Mateo split more than 80 percent of their sentences. San Diego splits 24 percent. Alameda is far lower.

Los Angeles is the lowest of all, Chief Powers reported. We split only a crazily miniscule four percent of our AB109 cases.

It was heartening to note that, at the meeting, Powers strongly recommended that LA utilize split sentences a lot more, pointing out that research has repeatedly shown that giving offenders supervision, help and treatment on release “significantly reduces recidivism.” Split-sentencing “enhances public safety,” Powers said as he reiterated Probation’s strong support, “and the benefits outweigh the costs.”

Assistant Chief Cecil Rhambo, who was also at the meeting, spoke for the LASD and said that the sheriff’s department also recommended more use of split sentencing as, in addition to its potential benefits in helping inmates succeed when they get out, it freed up jail space.

So why isn’t it being used in LA, when it is being embraced to a greater or lessor degree by almost all of California’s other counties?

The answer seemed to be mainly with the DA’s office, whose representative, Assistant District Attorney Bill Hodgeman, cheerfully admitted that “generally the DA’s don’t seek it…”

They didn’t seek it, he said, because it was a tool with which they were “unfamiliar.” Hodgeman then told the Supes that the DA’s office needed another six months to ponder the matter (or words to that effect).

WLA has an alternate idea: rather than contemplating the notion for another half year, perhaps the DA’s office should get down to business and “familiarize” themselves with the ins and outs of split sentencing ASAP. While it has a few bothersome quirks (that are too cumbersome to discuss here) split sentencing is not exactly a mysterious concept requiring knowledge of, say, advanced theoretical mathematics.

If the rest of California’s DA’s offices can manage to get a grip on split sentencing, surely our esteemed prosecutors can too.

And good for Chief Powers for pushing the matter, however gently.

SUPES’ VOTE ON BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION ON PAUSE

The Supervisors were also expected to vote Tuesday on a motion introduced by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to establish a Blue Ribbon Comission on Child Protection to provide an independent review of the foster care system. The motion’s co-sponsor, Supe Mike Antonovich, was absent from the meeting, so it has been continued to next week. We’ll keep you updated.

CA BILL TO CHANGE GANG DATABASE PROTOCOL ADVANCING THROUGH LEGISLATURE

Happy photo of the Youth Justice Coalition team that trekked to the capitol for the SB-458 hearing (plus an excellent bronze bear statue)!

A CA bill, SB-458, that would require law enforcement to notify minors and their parents if they have been added to a shared gang database, and would also allow families to appeal the identification, passed through the California State Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

Youth Justice Coalition has more on this important bill.

CALIFORNIA REDUCING YOUTH INCARCERATION

California is a juvenile justice “comeback state,” according to a report released Tuesday by the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) and the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice (TPPF). The report commends nine states in all that have produced juvenile justice system turn-arounds and points out the effective incarceration-reducing policies and alternatives. Here are some of the CA highlights:

The peak. The number of youth confined in public facilities increased from 12,519 in 1985 to 17,551 in 2000, a 40 percent jump.

The reversal. The number of youth confined in public facilities decreased from 16,548 in 2001 to 9,781 in 2010, a 40 percent decline. For all facilities (i.e., public and private), the number of youth decreased from 18,144 in 2001 to 11,531 in 2010, a 36 percent decline.

[SNIP]

Since the year 2007, California has adopted four of six types of incarceration-reducing policies highlighted in this report: 1) evidence-based alternatives to incarceration; 2) facility closings; 3) elimination or reduction of incarceration for minor offenses; and 4) additional statewide realignment that shifts responsibility for youth who commit offenses to counties.

Since 1996, subsequent California state legislatures have mandated three major realignments between state and county responsibilities and funding arrangements. The 1996 realignment imposed a sliding-scale fee schedule that required counties to pay a substantial share of the costs to confine youth who commit low-level offenses in state facilities.

As a result, the number of youth in state prisons fell from about 10,000 in 1996 to about 2,500 in 2007, the year that the next state realignment occurred, while the number in county facilities remained about the same. In 2007 and 2012, legislators mandated two more realignments for the purpose of both further reducing youth populations in state facilities and facilitating the use of community-based alternatives to confinement at the local level.

The Supreme Court, nearing the end of the 2012 term, delivered several notable decisions on Monday.

PRE-MIRANDA RIGHTS (OR LACK THEREOF)

In a 5-4 split ruling, the Supreme Court held that a defendant’s silence before being read his or her Miranda rights can be used against them in court.

AP’s Jessie J. Holland has the story. Here’s a clip:

The 5-4 ruling comes in the case of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of a 1992 murder. During police questioning, and before he was arrested or read his Miranda rights, Salinas answered some questions but did not answer when asked if a shotgun he had access to would match up with the murder weapon.

Prosecutors in Texas used his silence on that question in convicting him of murder, saying it helped demonstrate his guilt. Salinas appealed, saying his Fifth Amendment rights to stay silent should have kept lawyers from using his silence against him in court. Texas courts disagreed, saying pre-Miranda silence is not protected by the Constitution.

The high court upheld that decision.

The Fifth Amendment protects Americans against forced self-incrimination, with the Supreme Court saying that prosecutors cannot comment on a defendant’s refusal to testify at trial. The courts have expanded that right to answering questions in police custody, with police required to tell people under arrest they have a right to remain silent without it being used in court.

Prosecutors argued that since Salinas was answering some questions — therefore not invoking his right to silence — and since he wasn’t under arrest and wasn’t compelled to speak, his silence on the incriminating question doesn’t get constitutional protection.

MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING

In a second 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said that any finding of fact in a case that might increase the mandatory minimum sentence should not be determined by a judge, but instead, submitted to the jury for final say.

The Christian Science Monitor’s Warren Richey has the story. Here’s a clip:

The decision marks an important affirmation of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, while establishing a new rule for judges seeking to balance sentencing guidelines with their own judicial discretion.

In the 5-to-4 decision, the high court overturned two existing legal precedents from 1986 and 2002 that permitted judges to make such determinations themselves by a preponderance of the evidence.

In overturning those precedents, the majority justices said any fact that increases a defendant’s sentence – including a mandatory minimum sentence – must be submitted to a jury under the higher standard of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt.

(This is surprisingly complicated to summarize, so you might want to read the whole story.)

AZ VOTER REGISTRATION

SCOTUS also struck down an Arizona voter registration law requiring voters to prove their citizenship—but it’s complicated.

UC Irvine Law Professor Richard L. Hasen clears up the confusion surrounding the high court’s decision in a post for the Daily Beast.

(More SCOTUS rulings are expected this Thursday.)

UPDATE ON CALIFORNIA PRISON POP. PROBLEMS

Gov. Jerry Brown’s monthly report to federal judges shows that CA’s prison crowding situation is slowly getting worse. Brown says he’s drafting a legislative strategy to get the population reduction closer to the number mandated by the court. (Last month, the governor’s office began the process to appeal the federal court order to the Supreme Court.)

LA Times’ Paige St. John has the story. Here are some clips:

In the state’s monthly progress report to federal judges, California acknowledges prison crowding has again begun to creep upward while Gov. Jerry Brown promises to seek legislative solutions “shortly.”

The state’s 33 prisons are now at more than 150% capacity, according to Monday’s report to the U.S. District courts. Three prisons — North Kern, the Central California Women’s Facility, and Wasco — are at or near 175% crowding.

[SNIP]

For the second month in a row, Brown’s lawyers say the governor is “drafting legislative language” to take other steps to reduce crowding, including to keep more inmates in private prisons out of state, lease beds from county jails, and allow inmates who are elderly, medically frail or model prisoners to be released earlier.

EDITOR’S NOTE: DCFS BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION VOTE

Don’t forget that today—Tuesday— the LA County Board of Supervisors will consider a motion by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, cosponsored by Sup. Mike Antonovich, to create a Blue Ribbon Comission on Child Protection, in order to get to the bottom of why LA’s foster care system is still so disasterously dysfuntional.

(Here’s our earlier story on the motion.)

ONE IN FIVE CALIFORNIANS

According to a new survey released on Thursday, 1 in 5 Californians has been a victim of a crime in the past five years. Surprisingly, of those crime victims surveyed, the majority did not favor tougher laws, but rather wanted wanted prisons that were more rehabilitative and, in certain instances, favored treatment programs for certain kinds of crimes, rather than incarceration.

The survey, which was commissioned by Californians for Safety and Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform, reported among its findings that:

– Two-thirds of crime victims reported negative emotional affects in the aftermath, namely “anxiety, stress, and difficulty with sleeping, relationships or work,” often lasting six months or more

– Victims surveyed preferred investments in mental health and drug treatments by a three-to-one margin over incarceration.

-- Three in four victims believed that prisons either make inmates better at committing crimes or have no impact at all. Only a small minority believes that prisons rehabilitate people.

– When asked about California’s rates of incarceration, 36 percent of the victims surveyed said that we send “too many” people to prison, 33 percent said, “too few.”

-- The victims wanted a focus on supervised probation and rehabilitation by a two-to-one margin over prisons and jails (50 percent to 23 percent)

– 65 percent of the victims favored realignment, Gov. Jerry Brown’s AB109 program of sending low-level felons to county jail instead of state prison, and 24 percent opposed realignment.

A SNAPSHOT OF CRIME VICTIMS

“These findings will surprise people,” said David Binder, head of David Binder Research. His firm conducted the study in April 2013 with 2,600 Californians that matched the state’s demographics and geographies according to the 2010 Census.

According to Binder, the full survey was conducted with the 500 respondents who identified as crime victims. “We found that a small portion of the population–mostly young men of color—experiences the lion’s share of crime, whereas a larger majority experience none at all.”

“This report turns on its head the notion that victims only care about tough-on-crime sentences,” said Lenore Anderson, Director of Californians for Safety and Justice. Anderson said that crime victims want leaders to be “smart on crime. They believe we send too many people to prison, and they want more investment in education, mental health and drug treatment, supervised probation, and rehabilitation. In that way, their views very much align with overall public opinion, despite victims’ unique and often tragic experiences with crime.”

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK FOR VICTIMS & SURVIVORS?

Indeed, the survey’s results fly in the face of the points of view expressed by traditional crime victims advocacy organizations like Crime Victims United of California that, for the last 30 years, have been among the state’s most powerful lobbying forces. By aligning themselves politically and fiscally with the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the union that represents the state’s prison guards, and with the state’s district attorneys associations, these victims rights (VR) groups were able to push for tough-on-crime legislation that, in turn, ushered an interweave of sentencing statutes that has made California’s prison system the second largest in the nation (behind Texas).

These traditional victims groups, however, represent a specific demographic as they are made up largely of white women and some white men.

When the survey came out, Harriet Salarno, director Crime Victims United of California declared herself “outraged” by the report, which she characterized not “a true representation of how victims feel.”

Yet, the new survey indicates—and other research supports—that the majority of crime victims tend to be young African American or Latino males, most of whom reported that they had friends and family who had also been victimized, and the majority of whom do not appear, in general, to share the opinons of Salarno’s group and the rest of the long-established and influential victims of crime movement.

A DIFFERENT DIALOGUE WITH VICTIMS

In addition to measuring attitudes toward crime and punishment, the survey—which bills itself as the first ever survey of California crime victims—also looks at the unmet needs of this crime victims and survivors demographic, and and asks the respondents about their experiences with victim services, and about whether they reported the crime to law enforcement.

In addition, Californians for Safety and Justice has a line-up of crime victims and survivors who work with the organization, one of whom, the widow of a police officer, spoke affectingly to reporters during Thursday morning’s phone-in press conference. [See videos above and below.]

The survey—and the testimonies—are an interesting way of rebooting a conversation about state policy that, heretofore, has been dominated by one very narrow definition of victims.

Let us hope the conversation continues.

WARREN OLNEY CONFRONTS CARMEN TRUTANICH WITH, YOU KNOW, FACTS REGARDING HIS REALIGNMENT CAMPAIGN ATTACKS AGAINST FEUER

Thursday night’s Which Way LA? with Warren Olney on KCRW featured City Attorney candidates Mike Feuer and incumbent Carmen Trutanich, with each man interviewed for half the show.

More than perhaps any other interviewer or debate moderator during this election season, Olney has consistently asked the most intelligent, probing and illuminating questions of all the candidates who have stepped behind his microphones.

Thursday’s show with the City Attorney candidates was no exception.

However, his segment with Trutanich was a standout, as the ever dignified Olney all but chased “Nuch” around the room (metaphorically speaking), after Trutantich repeated his nonsense about AB109 letting inmates out of prison early, accusing realignment and Mike Feuer of being responsible for putting the Northridge kidnapping suspect on the street so the man could snatch ten-year-old girls….and more.

As we’ve said here, there is a legitimate and important discussion to be had about reforming AB 109 and some of its companion statutes mandating parole and probation reform. But that would require understanding the law in the first place, which Trutanich does not appear to do, and then one would have to deal in…you know, facts.

In the meantime, a hearty thank you to Warren Olney for holding our city attorney’s feet to the factual fire.

NEW STUDY ON PRISON RAPE AND SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION IN LOCK-UPS SHOWS THAT YOUTH ARE 13-21 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED THAN ADULTS WHEN INCARCERATED

A study released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) contained a number of disturbing statistics. But perhaps the most alarming stats have to do with the overall rates of sexual victimization for youth ages 16 and 17 in adult prisons (4.5%) and jails (4.7%), which were significantly higher than those for adults (4.0% in prisons, 3.2% in jails). The report also found that, among kids who reported being sexual victimized by staff, three quarters were victimized more than once, and nearly half said that staff used force or threat of force.

Yet those stats don’t tell the whole story, since kids are much fewer in numbers than adults in lock-up.

According to the highly respected Campaign for Youth Justice, research by BJS shows that 21% and 13% of all substantiated victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails in 2005 and 2006 respectively, were youth under the age of 18 (surprisingly high since only 1% of jail inmates are juveniles). Put another way, previous BJS research shows that youth in adult facilities were 13 to 21 times as likely to be sexually assaulted while in custody than their representation in the correctional population.

“This study tells us that youth face sexual victimization in adult institutions, but due to underreporting by youth in challenging adult facility conditions, we need more research to know more about this problem,” says Liz Ryan, President and CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ). “Previous studies and the experiences of young people in the adult criminal justice system document that youth are at greatest risk of sexual victimization in adult jails and prisons, “The report underscores the urgency for U.S. Attorney General Holder and the nation’s governors to redouble their efforts to fully implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act’s (PREA) (http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/preac.html) Youthful Inmate Standard by removing youth under 18 from adult jails and prisons.”

Amnesty International also noted that inmates who identify as LGBT in prisons and jails were at least 2.5 times more likely to be sexually victimized by staff than non-LGBT detainees.

LA’S TWIN TOWERS JAIL SHOWS HIGH RATE OF INMATE ON INMATE SEXUAL ASSAULTS ACCORDING TO THE STUDY

In the study, as you might immagine, some prisions and jails had higher frequencies of sexual abuse than others. The report flagged 11 male prisons, 1 female prison, and 9 jails that it identified as high-rate facilities based on the prevalence of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization in 2011-12.

LA’s Twin Towers Jail was one of those 9 Jails with the highest rates of sexual assaults, said the report. (SEE PAGES 11 & 12)

AND NOW BACK TO REALIGNMENT: A NEW STUDY INDICATES THAT ARRESTS AND CONVICTIONS REMAIN ABOUT THE SAME AS PRE-REALIGNMENT

A new study released Thursday by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation indicates that, under realignment, post-prison arrests are slightly down, while convictions remain static.

The study followed 37,448 lawbreakers for one year after their release from prison and compared those findings with statistics on 51,910 inmates released in the year immediately prior realignment.

The researchers found that post-Realignment offenders were arrested at a slightly lower rate than pre-Realignment offenders (62 percent pre-Realignment and 58.7 percent post-Realignment).

Key findings include:

* The number of post-Realignment offenders convicted of new crimes is nearly the same as the number of pre-Realignment offenders convicted of new crimes (21.3 percent pre-realignment and 22.5 percent post realignment).

* Post-Realignment offenders returned to prison at a significantly lower rate than pre-Realignment offenders, an intended effect of Realignment as most offenders are ineligible to return to prison on a parole violation. (42 percent pre-Realignment and 7.4 percent post-Realignment)

This last is due to the fact that, prior to realignment, parolees were being returned to prison on technical violations of their parole at a rapid clip. Whereas now, with many parolees, technical violations—things like staying out of their old neighborhoods, testing dirty, and so on—do not result in 9 mos more in prison.

There is additional fine grain stuff in the study itself, so click here, if you want delve deeper into the matter. A lot more study is needed, yet the bottom line take-away from this study is that those who have been shrieking that realignment is causing crime to run rife through the countryside, do not have facts on their side.

FEDERAL OVERSIGHT OF LAPD OFFICIALLY ENDS

The Federal Consent Decrees finally is no more for the LAPD. The AP’s Tami Abdollah has the story. Here’s a clip:

A judge has officially ended more than a decade of federal oversight of the Los Angeles Police Department that was triggered by a corruption scandal involving abusive officers.
In two short sentences, U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess dismissed the final remnants of a consent decree on Wednesday, releasing the department from a transition agreement put in place in 2009 to ensure reforms that had been made were kept in place.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa cheered the formal end to agreement at an afternoon news conference with Police Chief Charlie Beck. Villaraigosa said the department, which was once “an example of how not to police a city, is now a national model.”

Tyler Izen, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said the union was pleased the department was free of the federal monitoring.

“Now we can begin looking for efficiencies in LAPD processes while at the same time maintaining the transparency the public deserves,” he said. The union represents nearly 10,000 LAPD personnel.

The city was forced into the consent decree in 2001 under the threat of a federal lawsuit. The U.S. government alleged a pattern of civil rights violations committed by police officers that went back decades.

Now that it’s over, it bears remembering that, as odious as the thing was, the Consent Decree was a tool that Bill Bratton used effectively to begin to institute real reform in the department.

TRUTANICH “MISLEADING VOTERS” ON REALIGNMENT, SAYS GOVERNOR

With just a few days until the May 21 general election, Gov. Jerry Brown has recorded a message to voters calling out City Attorney Carmen Trutanich for spreading misleading information about prison realignment. Trutanich, who is running a decidedly uphill battle for reelection was originally a supporter of realignment. Now, he has changed his tune, and is bashing opponent Mike Feuer for supporting it, inaccurately pronouncing realignment the “get-out-of-jail early law,” and more.

LA Weekly’s Gene Maddaus has the story. Here’s a clip:

In a mailer, Trutanich calls the plan “the get-out-of-jail early law.” The mailer describes Tobias Summers, the alleged Northridge kidnapper, as “one of Feuer’s get-out-of-jail free graduates.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has disputed that, saying that Summers was not released early.

Brown endorsed Trutanich in his failed D.A. campaign, but is now supporting Feuer for city attorney. In the robocall, Brown faults Trutanich for “misleading voters by suddenly attacking a public safety plan he once supported.”

We’d kind of like a city attorney who bothers to check his facts on legal matters, but that’s just us.

WILLFUL DEFIANCE NO LONGER GROUNDS FOR SUSPENDING L.A. KIDS

Tuesday, the LAUSD school board voted to ban suspensions for the catchall, “willful defiance,” in favor of alternative behavioral disciplines. L.A. is the first district in the state to take this large step toward school disciplinary reform.

The state bill on the same issue is making its way through the legislative process. According to Public Counsel spokesman Michael Soller, “AB 420 passed the Assembly Education Committee, and is headed for an appropriations vote on May 24 or 25. If it gets out of that committee, then it’s on to the Senate.”

WitnessLA will certainly be keeping an eye on it.

LA Times’ Teresa Watanabe has the story on LAUSD’s vote. Here’s a clip:

The packed board room erupted in cheers after the 5-2 vote to approve the proposal, which made L.A. Unified the first school district in the state to ban defiance as grounds for suspension. The action comes amid mounting national concern that removing students from school is imperiling their academic achievement and disproportionately harming minority students, particularly African Americans.

“Now we’ll have a better chance to stay in school and become something,” said Luis Quintero, 14, a student at Augustus Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. He attended the board meeting, along with dozens of other students and community activists who have been pushing the proposal by board members Monica Garcia and Nury Martinez.

But the vote came after an impassioned discussion over whether the proposal would give a “free pass” to students and shield them from the consequences of misbehavior. Board members Marguerite LaMotte told students that they needed to pay for their mistakes, while Richard Vladovic said no student had the right to disrupt learning opportunities for classmates.

“I’m not going to give you permission to go crazy and think there are no consequences,” LaMotte said.

U.S. KIDS’ HIGH EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA

According to a new report from JAMA Pediatrics, four out of ten kids in the U.S. were exposed to physical violence in the last year. In addition, an alarming 13.7 percent of the 4,500 children surveyed reported repeated mistreatment from their caregivers.

The Examiner’s Sharon Gloger Friedman has the story. Here’s a clip:

…Survey results showed:

*Physical assault in the past year was reported by 41.2 percent of respondents.

*Assault-related injuries were reported by 10.1 percent of respondents.

*Nearly 11 percent of girls ages 14 to 17 reported sexual assault or abuse.

*Repeated maltreatment by a caregiver was reported by 13.7 percent of respondents; of that group 3.7 percent said they experienced physical abuse.

More than 13 percent of kids reported being physically bullied; one in three said they had been emotionally bullied.
According to Dr. Michael Brody, a child psychiatrist in Potomac, Md., these numbers may be low.

“I think, unfortunately, this [violence] is so endemic to our society, it’s overlooked. It is considered like a cold,” Brody, who often works with victims of childhood violence, and who is a spokesperson for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, told HealthDay News.

Brody added that witnessing or experiencing violence as a child can result in rage, lack of security, feelings of powerlessness, nightmares and other psychological aftereffects that last long into adulthood.

Of particular concern are children and teens who suffer frequent exposures to violence. Survey results showed that nearly 15 percent of study participants had been exposed to violence six or more times in the past year and about five percent had been exposed to 10 or more violent acts.

A similar study by the National Survey of Children’s Health found that nearly 48 percent of US youth had experienced at least one major childhood trauma.

Jane Stevens expertly lays out the consequences of this exposure to violence and trauma on her blog, ACEs Too High. Here’s a clip:

Almost half the nation’s children have experienced at least one or more types of serious childhood trauma, according to a new survey on adverse childhood experiences by the National Survey of Children’s Health (NHCS). This translates into an estimated 34,825,978 children nationwide, say the researchers who analyzed the survey data.

Even more concerning, nearly a third of U.S. youth age 12-17 have experienced two or more types of childhood adversity that are likely to affect their physical and mental health as adults. Across the 50 U.S. states, the percentages range from 23 percent for New Jersey to 44.4 percent for Arizona.

The data are clear, says Dr. Christina Bethell: If more prevention, trauma-healing and resiliency training programs aren’t provided for children who have experienced trauma, and if our educational, juvenile justice, mental health and medical systems are not changed to stop traumatizing already traumatized children, many of the nation’s children are likely to suffer chronic disease and mental illness. Not only will their lives be difficult, but the nation’s already high health care costs will soar even higher, she believes. Bethell is director of the National Maternal and Child Health Data Resource Center, part of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI). The Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Service Administration, sponsors the survey.

Those numbers are already formidable, and they get much higher when looking at kids in the juvenile justice system.

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON CONCERT TO RAISE MONEY FOR HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES

And on a happier note, Kris Kristofferson will be performing a benefit concert for Homeboy Industries’ 25th anniversary, at Pepperdine’s Smothers Theater on June 23. (WitnessLA plans to be there.)

FishbowlLA’s Richard Horgan has more details on the concert.

The May issue of Los Angeles Magazine contains a profile of Father Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries. (And, yes, we’ll link to the profile the moment that it’s out.) Under most circumstances, such a story would be illustrated by a photo portrait. But LA Mag decided to go another way and commissioned a painting of Fr. Greg by Boyle Heights artist, Fabian Deborah, a former gang member and drug addict who now heads Homeboy’s drug and alcohol program.

The painting-as-illustration idea was not so unusual, but Fabian did the thing in secret without telling the priest that he was fashioning his portrait.

I’ve known Fabian for nearly 2 decades, and some other day, we’ll tell the full story of how a near-miraculous art moment, along with Fr. Greg, saved Fabian’s life—and how art kept pulling Fabian back from the brink until he could finally and truly save himself.

For now, here are a few clips of LA Mag’s interview with Fabian Deborah about his secret Boyle-related painting project.

You painted a portrait of Father Boyle for the first time for our profile. Tell us about the artwork.

The painting took me approximately seven days to create and is acrylic paint on a standard 30-inch-by-40-inch canvas. Father Boyle is my father, my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. It’s nice to paint a portrait of your mentor, although it has to be done in the proper manner. I wanted to make sure it was up to par. I wanted to be able to connect him to his roots—the Mission and the housing projects. The [painting represents] the progression of his vision. He doesn’t like to be glorified, but it was an honor for me. I had many wonderful memories as I was placing the paint onto the canvas. I’m just waiting to see his reaction—it’s a surprise he doesn’t know about yet.

Was it hard for you to keep him in the dark?
Oh yes, it was very hard. I felt like going to him many times to get his approval, but I had to go around him and ask coworkers about his likeness with the painting. The responses were great, so that helped me go through with the painting.

How do you hope Father Boyle responds?

I hope he feels the importance of his action when he inspired me to create art back when I was ten years old. Like, “Wow, now he painted me after all these years. I am now a part of his works of art.”

[SNIP]

What does your art say about Boyle Heights?

I think it shines light. As a representative of Boyle Heights, I’m trying to invite the audience to see the beauty within my community, without the stereotypes and the stigma that it has had because of the gangs and violence. There’s a lot of richness and culture as well as the individual. The homie is a human being. When I paint the homie, it’s not to glorify his actions, it’s to return him to humanity. It’s about redemption. It’s a way of healing for me.

EVERYBODY’S SHOUTING AT JERRY BROWN—WHICH IS SORT OF A BAD NEWS/GOOD NEWS SITUATION

Two weeks ago Thursday, a very angry three-judge panel spent a lot of time shouting at—or at least talking harshly to—- the state’s governor, Jerry Brown, about how Brown hadn’t reduced California’s prison population as far as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling has demanded. There was some mention of throwing Jerry Brown into jail for contempt if he didn’t come up with a plan to get with the program.

All this judicial shouting occurred amidst the ongoing and seemingly constant drumbeat of furious criticism aimed Brown and his AB109 prison realignment plan, which has managed to reduce the prison population by more than 30,000 inmates, by mandating—among other things—-that certain short-term incarcerations be served at a county level, in jail, not in state prison.

The bulk of those serving time in jail, rather than prison, under realignment are drug offenders. In fact a look at the most recent report released by the California Department of Corrections shows that at the end of 2010, about 24,889 inmates convicted of drug crimes were residing in California prisons. By the end of 2012, that number had fallen by nearly half, to 12,364.

Realignment—the policy that, among other changes, shifts certain lower has been blamed for nearly every bad news violent crime or crime rate hiccup, that has occurred since its inception, no matter that, in most cases, there is no factual causal connection. (Some critics have actually suggested the the governor be indicted for some of the crimes committed during realignment.)

A slew of bills have been introduced in the state legislature, all hoping to tweak AB109 in ways that will put more people back in prison.

However, Thomas Elias writing for the Daily News points out how the being snarled at by a trio federal judges may not be the worst thing in the world for Brown as he deals with those who are demanding that he roll back AB109 in order to lock more people up for longer again.

Here’s a clip:

Normally, it’s uncomfortable to hear a federal judge — let alone a panel of three jurists — thunder criticism at one from the bench.

But as usual, Gov. Jerry Brown is different. Prison realignment has drawn more criticism than any other single thing he has done in his second incarnation as governor, even. But the judges’ tirade now provides Brown a convenient scapegoat, one on which he can pin blame for the entire prisoner-release program, and with complete accuracy.

“At no point over the past several months have defendants indicated any willingness to comply, or made any attempt to comply, with the orders of this court,” said the panel of judges, referring to Brown and his administration. “In fact, they have blatantly defied (court orders). ”

The three jurists gave Brown 21 days to submit a plan for meeting their prison population target by the end of this year. If Brown doesn’t simultaneously begin complying with the court order, the judges said, he risks being cited for contempt. So the governor said he would ready a plan to release 10,000 more prisoners in case his appeals fail.

Read the rest here.

(NOTE: a thank you to Elias for writing factually and unhysterically on this issue.)

WHAT TO DO ABOUT SEX OFFENDERS WHO SNIP THEIR ANKLE MONITORS? ROB GREENE AT THE LA TIMES STARTS A SMART & INFORMATIVE CONVERSATION

In the last month or so there’s been a string of news stories about sex offenders snipping off or disabling their ankle monitors after they get out of prison. It turns out there is not much of a legal penalty for messing with one’s monitor.

Unfortunately, much of the reporting on the topic has tended toward the sensational, and many reporters have uncritically repeated the opinions of those who wrongly blame the problem on California’s new prison realignment system.

Since sex offenders are most people’s least favorite brand of law breaker, the news of all this monitor untethering has triggered outrage and calls for speedy solutions—which has predictably, caused lawmakers to hastily trot out half-cooked bills to “fix” the matter.

It is just this sort of knee-jerk urge to find quickie legislative fixes in response to public pressure that has, in the past, given us some very bad laws and a disastrously over-crowded prison system.

Thus it was enormously relieving to read in Sunday’s LA Times, Rob Greene’s smart, thoughtful and very fact-drivin editorial on the matter. (Although the essay is signed by the whole editorial board, it is written by LAT ed board member Robert Greene.)

Greene lays out all the puzzle pieces that formed this ankle-bracelet snipping problem-–and suggests ways that it might be fixed.

He also makes clear how very little the issue has to do with realignment.

Here’s a clip. But I urge anyone interested in this matter to read to whole thing. It clears up a lot, I promise.

California already had what were arguably the nation’s toughest sex offender laws in 2006 when voters, spurred on nightly by fear-mongering television hosts such as Nancy Grace and Bill O’Reilly, adopted this state’s version of Jessica’s Law. Proposition 83 required all convicted sex felons, whether violent or not, whether still on parole or not, and whether at high or low risk of reoffending, to wear electronic monitoring devices for the rest of their lives. Drafters ignored the fact that there was virtually no evidence that global positioning satellite tracking reduces the number or severity of sex crimes, and they didn’t consider whether to allocate the high costs of perpetual monitoring to the state or to county governments. They didn’t think through how to penalize parolees and post-parole registrants who cut off or disabled their ankle monitors.

A proposal that might have made for an instructive pilot program that revealed flaws and allowed for course corrections was instead rushed onto the ballot and then onto the books, and California has been dealing with the consequences ever since.

Now, parolees and post-parole sex registrants are cutting off or disabling their ankle monitors in increasing numbers each year. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced bills intended to toughen oversight (or at least the appearance of oversight) of sex offenders and others who violate the terms of their release. They tend not to criticize the disastrous but still-popular Proposition 83 but focus instead on public safety realignment under AB 109, another law that was passed hastily, this time by the Legislature in 2011 as part of a budget package to cut costs and prison overcrowding.

AB 109 sends many newly convicted felons to county jails instead of state prison and redirects oversight of some felons, as their incarceration ends, from the state parole agency to county probation departments, under a program with the cumbersome title of post-release community supervision, or PRCS.

PRCS violators who formerly would have been returned to prison for up to a year are now returned to county jail, and for only up to six months — including those whose violations consist of disabling their monitoring devices. Some lawmakers claim that county sheriffs release such violators immediately, or never even take them in, because their jails already are overcrowded. Some lawmakers have responded with bills to send such people back to state prison instead of county jail. Some of those bills would commit them to prison for the one-year period they formerly would have served; some would commit them for as long as three years — far longer than such violators ever would have served before AB 109 was adopted. Some would make sex offenders ineligible for county jail in the first place and require them to be housed in prison even on new non-sex-related offenses.

In other words, these bills would roll back realignment and restock state prisons with sex offenders, low-risk and high-risk alike, in some cases at a greater rate and for a longer period than they were ever imprisoned before, and it would do so just as the state is making headway in its effort to comply with federal courts and ease prison overcrowding. California prison overcrowding had become so bad, and medical and mental health services for inmates was so inadequate, that federal courts found the state to be violating constitutional strictures against cruel and unusual punishment.

But lawmakers need to slow down and take a breath. This is how we got into trouble in the first place — with swiftly passed, knee-jerk laws in reaction to sensational headlines. California must use its deliberative, legislative hearing process to gather data, air views and clarify just what the problems are that we are trying to solve, and what the best ways are to solve them….

Do read the rest.

DO THE LAPD’S INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS NEED SOME WORK?

The Nation Magazine has published a very critical report by Uzma Kolsy about the LAPD’s ability to appropriately investigate its own use of force incidents. Kolsy writes that Chief Beck and the LAPD’s leadership clearly want constitutional policing, but questions whether the higher ups are holding officers who step over the line with use of force as unwaveringly unaccountable as is needed. Kolsy and the Nation think the answer is No.

Here’re a couple of clips:

Last year, Alecia Thomas died in LAPD custody after a violent arrest in which a policewoman kicked her in the groin after having trouble restraining her. Thomas died in the back of a patrol car that was fitted with a camera, but the LAPD did not release the surveillance footage. In a news release detailing the incident, the LAPD made no mention of the fact that the officer assaulted Thomas before forcing her into the car. In another incident last fall, LAPD officers found a suspect hiding under a vehicle, dragged him out by his ankles, and believing they saw a metallic object in his hands, shot him in the back, critically wounding him. The news release following the incident omitted the fact that the suspect was handcuffed and face down when they fired at him. No weapon was found on the suspect.

[SNIP]

….LAPD officer Joseph Cruz fired several fatal rounds at Mohammad Usman Chaudhry, when he allegedly pulled out a folding knife in a threatening way. Even Cruz’s partner said he never saw Chaudhry with a knife, yet an internal investigation cleared Cruz of any wrongdoing. Later, he was fired from the force for lies regarding an unrelated matter. In 2011, a federal jury rejected Cruz’s account of the shooting. Evidence used at trial included the knife in question, which was tested for DNA. The results did not match Chaudhry.

[SNIP]

A 2010 report by the CATO Institute found that Los Angeles had one of the highest concentrations of credible reports of police misconduct in the country. And in 2011, LAPD had a reported sixty-three officer-involved shooting incidents, a roughly 50 percent increase over the shootings in any of the previous four years. Belligerent officers’ using unwarranted deadly force is a serious concern the department still faces.

A WELL-LIKED SINGLE FATHER WORKING AT CITY HALL AT THE HOMEBOY DINER BREAKS HEARTS WITH A FATAL CRASH

The tragic story was all over the news last month, about how a 9-year-old girl had hiked alone at night in the desert to try to find help for her father who was badly injured—fatally as it turned out—when the family SUV went down an embankment and crashed in the desert.

The father was Alex Renteria, an extremely well-liked 35-year-old who had turned his life around with the help of Homeboy Industries and had been working in the Homeboy Diner in LA’s City Hall.

Renteria’s death shocked many of those working in City Hall who’d gotten to know the kind, smiling man who was proud of his work and talked so lovingly about his daughter. One of those affected was LA Times reporter Kate Linthicum, who has written a fine and affecting first person account about her day-to-day friendship with Renteria and how his death hit her.

Here’s a clip:

Like a lot of people who spend time at Los Angeles City Hall, I knew Alex. He worked at Homeboy Diner, the small cafe on the second floor run by Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit group that provides counseling, tattoo removal and job training for former gang members.

When the diner opened two years ago, I wrote about Alex and his story of transformation. He had been in prison and had battled addiction. Through Homeboy, he found work and the 12-step program.

During our interview, as he stacked bags of chips at the diner, he told me: “I’m just happy to be here.”

If this had been any other news story, that would have been the last time I saw him. This is one of the odd qualities of the journalism profession: It’s your job to ask probing questions of strangers you may never speak to again.

But I worked at City Hall, so I encountered Alex every time I went to Homeboy for a salad or a cup of coffee. He was a real charmer, always quick to tell me how nice I looked, and never failing to ask about my day. When I was going through a hard breakup, he made me hot chocolate and offered advice.

Alex had expressive eyebrows that arched comically when he told jokes. He loved old-school R&B and freestyle music and was proud of his weekend job as a mover. He adored his daughter, Cecilia, and was saving up to take her to Disneyland for her birthday next month.

Alex, 35, a single dad, often brought Cecilia with him to work. She got to know a number of city workers who would sometimes take her on tours of their offices.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of City Hall employees who made the trek to San Fernando for Alex’s funeral Friday. Or by the proclamation sent by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Capri Maddox, the president of the Board of Public Works, gave Cecilia a commemorative egg from the White House Easter Egg Roll a few weeks ago….

Read the rest here.

A PHOTO NOTE: Due to an untimely hardrive crash WLA’s chief photo scribbler is without her beloved Adobe Photoshop for a day or two. So bear with us as we use other, clumsier means.

Light posting today. Working on a number of interesting thing for next week and the following week.

COPS AND PROSECUTORS HELP MORE IN EXONERATIONS IN 2012

According to a new report released Wednesday, 2012 was a good year for exonerations, with California adding the most exonerations to the list last year.

On notable difference in last year’s innocence cases is that more police and prosecutors assisted in the exonerations.

Maggie Clark has the story for Stateline.

D.C. STUDENTS SHOOTING PICTURES TO PROTEST ADDED SCHOOL SECURITY

Gotta love the proactive attitude of this group of students using their cameras to protest what they view as an overzealous security, post Newtown. Annie Gowen at the Washington Post has the story. Here’s a clip from the opening:

The small band of guerrilla photographers spread out in schools across the District, snapping photos of metal detectors, police pat-downs, and scuffles between security guards and students.

The dozen or so teens, who hail from some of the area’s most troubled neighborhoods, are trying to document the kind of school security issues that have taken center stage in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings.

Since the December tragedy, the question of whether schools are safe has gained new urgency, with the Senate weighing $40 million in funding for school security plans and the National Rifle Association — which has called for armed teachers, administrators or guards in every school — releasing recommendations from its experts Tuesday.

But H.D. Woodson High School senior Mike Ruff and other classmates have armed themselves with cameras to make the opposite point. They say that their learning environment has been scarred by relentless security. They say their high schools, among an estimated 10,000 nationwide with police on campus, feel like prisons….

Read the rest here.

MORE SLOPPY REALIGNMENT REPORTING, THIS TIME HAVING TO DO WITH THE NORTHRIDGE CHILD ABDUCTION

Tobias Dustin Summers is suspected of kidnapping the 10-year old Northridge girl last week, and is now on the run. It seems, however, that when Summers finished his most recent prison term and got out, he was assigned to a probation officer, not a parole officer, under AB 109. His practical requirements were basically the same. And he, reportedly, hit most all his marks. He drug tested when he was required to do so. He didn’t test dirty. He met with his PO on schedule.

Then the day after one such meeting, he went out and allegedly abducted a little girl.

Unfortunately, the horrific abduction is being blamed—with a blithe lack of fact-checking—on realignment. Scads of reporters are advancing this sloppy theory, as is LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

In the midst of all this misinformation, WLA sends a gigantic thank you to Rina Palta at KPPC for reporting on the story like the smart, hard-working, clear-minded professional she is–(AKA someone who thinks that accuracy and logical thought are both good things).

You can read Palta’s story here

ASSEMBLY DEMS REJECT FIRST ROUNDS OF ATTEMPTED REALIGNMENT ROLL-BACKS

After decades of general spinelessness on criminal justice reform (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), certain California democrats are energetically slapping down a rash of ill-conceived pieces of legislation that would roll-back parts of realignment.

The chief of those doing the slap-downs is Public Safety committee Chairman Tom Ammiano (D. San Francisco).

For instance, on Tuesday, Ammiano led the majority of his committee members to reject a bill that would return to prison sex offenders who violated parole, rather than sending them to jail for a shorter term.

The bill the Ammiano-led vote knocked down was, as the LA Times Paige St. John points out, nearly identical to a bill rejected by the committee last month.

In rejecting the bill, Ammiano expressed concern about the positive gains of realignment being dismantled, while at the same time acknowledging that, under realignment, some county sheriffs are slashing the jail terms of certain parolees far more than is wise.

Here’s what St. John writes on the matter:

[Ammiano] also expressed concern about how county officials decide who to release early from jail, and that California takes a “one size fits all” approach to sex offenders. Ammiano said he plans to file his own legislation on the matter later this year.

“You have identified a problem. There’s no doubt about that,” Ammiano told [Republican Assemblyman Mike] Morrell. “I disagree on your solution.” Morrell’s bill died on a 2-4 party-line vote, with Democrats in the majority.

This is heartening. Ammiano acknowledged that there are, indeed, some problems with the current law that need to be addressed. But he appeared to be looking for fact-based, targeted solutions with which to reform AB109—rather than simply throwing fear-based, reactive “tough-on-crime” bills at the matter, damn the consequences or the collateral damage.

(By the way, I don’t mean to slam Republicans on these issues. While a great many conservative California lawmakers have been annoyingly fact-challenged when it comes to the topic of realignment, on a national level a growing number of conservatives have shown real leadership in criminal justice matters, most notably the Right on Crime movement.)

AND IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT TWO OF THE NEW REALIGNMENT ROLL-BACK BILLS ARE AUTHORED BY DEMOCRATS

A bill authored by Sacramento Assemblyman (D) Ken Cooley would send “drug traffickers” to prison, not jail—which on the surface sounds…reasonable. (I mean, whom among us wants big time drug traffickers to be given mere wrist slaps.) On the other hand, we’d like to drill down into this one a bit, and do some fact checking. In the meantime, Melody Gutierrez of the Sacramento Bee reports on Cooley’s bill, which would provide sentencing enhancements for certain kinds of drug dealers.

(Now see that’s a red flag right there: Sentencing enhancements. In California, we have not had a problem giving big time drug dealers big bad sentences. To the contrary, our prisons are loaded with small time drug dealers doing big nasty sentences. So what is it exactly we need to “enhance” anyway? Once WLA has had a chance to poke around a little bit, we’ll have a better idea if this bill has merit, or is playing to the cheap seats.)

Cooley also plans to co-introduce a bill that would send certain parole violators back to prison. WLA will be looking into that one too.

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF REALIGNMENT….CUSTODY CANINES

With all the noisy grandstanding about the need to roll back the purported evils of realignment, what usually gets lost is the fact that a large part of the purpose of AB109 is for certain inmates and parolees to be taken out of the hands of the state and put in the care of the various counties. The reason for this (in addition to lowering the state’s prison populations like SCOTUS told us we must do—or else), is the belief that the counties are potentially better able to help these inmates and parolees succeed as they leave custody and reenter our communities. Rehabilitation and reentry is a task at which the state has roundly and repeatedly failed (hence our high recidivism rate, which led to our out-of-control prison population). AB109 challenges the counties to step up and do better.

Some counties, like San Francisco, have managed to coordinate their various agencies—probation, the sheriff’s department, and the rest— in order to grab hold of the challenge with some good early results.

Other counties (like LA)…not so much.

Nevertheless, there are a few bright spots. Which brings us to….Custody Canines.

MCJ’S JAIL DOGS

Right now, thirty-six Los Angeles County Jail inmates are participating in what is called the Custody Canine Program, housed—of all places—at Men’s Central Jail. Inmates volunteer for the 3-5 week program that teaches them to train dogs. Each of the dogs that come to the program has languished unwanted at a kennel or shelter. The idea is for the inmates to take these rejected critters and, through intensive training and interaction, to prepare them to be successfully adopted.

The program was started in August of last year in partnership with Belmonte’s Dog Training and Equipment, whose professional trainers provide the requisite instruction for the incarcerated humans who in turn work with the orphaned dogs. The participants, who are all part of the Sheriff Lee Baca’s Education Based Incarceration program, stay in 18-person dorms, with one dog to a dorm—meaning that everybody gets to take regular turns at hound duty.

The program kicks off at 6:30 a.m. each day, with a different person from the cell working with the dog every half hour, thus helping with the beast’s socialization, while both human and canine are gaining skills.

Custody Canine is funded through the Inmate Welfare Fund, which in turn is funded through the proceeds from inmate vending, commissary, and collect phone calls. (The “bonus” that the department receives every year for its collect phone call contracts amounts to big bucks.)

Similar programs are housed in various prisons around the nation, and have been widely praised for their success in rehabilitating troubled dogs, while helping inmates reconnect with themselves in such a way that increases the likelihood that they will succeed after they are released. However, few if any such programs have been tried in county jails, making LA’s Custody Canine unique—and promising.

KTLA also did a short story on the Custody Canine Program that’s worth watching to see the inmates and dogs working together.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve not seen the program up close, but WLA plans to visit Custody Canines in person in the next few months as we survey various county programs that work with AB 109 prisoners and parolees—in LA County and elsewhere in the state. We’ll let you know what we see.

LOS ANGELES SUPERVISORS (THANKFULLY) DECIDE THAT BACA’S $1 BILLION JAIL-BUILDING PLAN NEEDS MORE STUDY

As we reported on Tuesday morning, the planned discussion of Sheriff Baca’s nearly $933 million plan to build a new, state-of-the-art jail to replace the bad old Men’s Central Jail, was abruptly yanked off the meeting schedule when the LA County Supervisors indicated they intended to vote on a motion to table the building plan pending further study.

The motion that passed unanimously by the Supes—proposed by Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Gloria Molina—ask for a study of the matter that included the following:

*A description of existing facilities, number and types of beds
*A profile of the existing inmate population by classification;
*A trend analysis that projects the need for beds by security classification type over the next ten, twenty and thirty years
*Jail Plan options and related assumptions which include
one-time and on-going funding needs; including State funding options
*A timeline/delivery schedule, which includes swing space during construction.

The building proposal, which was remarkably similar to the plan put forth by Baca and County CEO Bill Fujioka in January of last year. And that plan was tabled pending further study too. Now a year later, a slightly tweaked version of last year’s was about to be marched out—even though it appeared to have made little or no use of last year’s James Austin analyses of how best to handle the county’s inmate population and what kind of facilities were needed.

We know the sheriff has a habit of pushing for more money for this and that, whenever it is possible, but what’s the CEO’s excuse?

KPCC’s Rina Palta has a story on the issue. Here’s a clip:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca’s proposal for a nearly $1 billion jail construction project needs thorough evaluation by an outside entity, the county Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

Supervisors directed the county’s CEO to commission a study of current jail needs and what they might be over the next 20 to 30 years.

Baca’s latest proposal for replacing downtown L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail with a more modern facility calls for reopening the shuttered Mira Loma jail to house women, and moving men into the Century Regional Detention Facility—the current women’s jail. Baca’s proposal also calls for building two new towers on the site of Men’s Central Jail.

[SNIP]

Peter Eliasberg, of the ACLU of Southern California—which called Men’s Central “nightmarish” in a 2009 report—agreed that it’s time for the old jail to go.

“Men’s Central jail is a disaster. It needs to be closed,” Eliasberg said.

But he said the “parade of proposals” that have come before the supervisors regarding the county’s jail needs have lacked a fundamental component: planning.

“One minute they’re telling us the jails can hold 21,000 people,” said Eliasberg. “Six months later, they’re telling us they can hold 14,000 people.”

Eliasberg said the county “has not done the basic studies” of the the current jail capacity and the projections for how many inmates the county system will need to house in the future, especially considering the sheriff’s plans for alternatives to incarceration.

PS: Baca said this week that, rather than tear down Men’s Central Jail, which was the plan last year, he’d like to repurpose it to use for his Education Based Incarceration program, a strategy that—if at all practical—we rather like.

DO YOU KNOW HOW YOUR BILLIONS IN REALIGNMENT TAX $$ ARE BEING USED?

In April, Stanford’s Dr. Joan Petersilia and her team of researchers, will release a study that looks at California’s $4+ billion Realignment plan to see what is effective and what isn’t, and how the various counties were spending their millions of state tax dollars.

In this this Huffington Post essay Michael Santos hints at some of the things the Stanford team found.

Here’s a clip:

…AB 109, or Realignment, was a legislative response to judicial decisions concerning health care in state prison. Jurists found California prisons were hopelessly overcrowded. The only remedy that would allow California prisoners to receive adequate health care required the state to reduce its prisoner population by tens of thousands of people.

The legislature and Governor Brown responded with Realignment. The AB 109 legislation was designed to lower prison population levels by diverting certain offenders from state prison to serve their sanctions in the county jail or on county probation. Qualifying for the Realignment sentencing meant the offenders were non-sex offenders, non-violent offenders, and non-serious offenders, referred to as non-non-nons, or NNNs.

Many people on parole would also receive different treatment under Realignment. Rather than being sent back to state prison for technical violations, people who violated conditions of their parole (but did not violate new laws) would be sanctioned to the county system rather than to state prison.

[SNIP]

Realignment operated under the ostensible theory that county officials might be more inclined to work toward preparing low-level offenders for law-abiding lives. The AB 109 legislation provided county officials with the funds to implement evidence-based practices that have been shown to reduce recidivism.

[However when Stanford researchers looked at how the counties spent their millions, they] …”found that only 12 percent of the total first-year allotment for Realignment funds across the state was given to community service providers that provided treatment programs and services.

The Stanford analysis also found that about 35 percent of all the allocated AB 109 money was earmarked for probation and sheriff staff salaries. That was the average, though. Some counties, like Sacramento, allocated a much higher percentage of AB 109 spending for traditional law enforcement operations. According to its published AB 109 budget, Sacramento County received $29,988,198. The Sheriff’s Department scored with $20,040,553 of those funds, but it only allocated $500,000 for “inmate services,” a measly 2.5 percent. Like most counties, Sacramento allocated the lion’s share of its AB 109 funding for traditional law enforcement services…..

Read the rest.

By the way, this story in the Union Democrat by Sean Jannson paints a depressing picture of how one of California’s counties, Calaveras, squabbled unpleasantly over their realignment $$, getting very little done, and leaving public safety to fend for itself.

DO WE NEED LEGISLATION TO “HIT THE RESET BUTTON” ON ZERO TOLERANCE RUNNING AMOK?

This week, the attorney representing the 7-year-old Maryland boy, who may or may not have bitten his pop tart into the shape of a gun, announced plans to appeal the child’s suspension so as to get the pastry biting black mark off the kid’s record.

Columnist and radio producer Lynda Bekore writes in the Huffington Post that, in light of this sort of idiocy, which admittedly seems of late to be running rife through the countryside, we may need some legislation that lays down some common sense ground rules to prevent schools across the nation from doing harm to kids with whacked out, fear-based zero-tolerance policies.

In other words, sadly, we may need government overreach to prevent school overreach.

Here’s a clip:

For any student, the stigma and shame of a school suspension can be emotionally life-altering; for older students, suspensions become part of their permanent record, adversely affecting their chances of acceptance to college.

Most principals would usually not choose to suspend a student for anything but egregious misconduct, or repeat bad behavior, instead opting for discipline more appropriate to that specific student or situation. But their hands are tied by the extreme limitations of zero tolerance imposed by their school boards, who themselves feel constrained by a litigious culture that demands expensive retribution for any perceived slight to another child’s precious self-esteem.

We can all throw our hands up in the air or shrug our shoulders, and tsk, tsk the silliness of “other” people’s narrow-minded lack of good judgment, or we can try to make it stop. Maryland State Senator J.B. Jennings recently introduced a bill, The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013, which calls for clearer disciplinary guidelines at specific grade levels for behavior that is not directly physically violent, such as nibbling a pastry into a gun, or talking about shooting bubbles from a Hello Kitty bubble gun.