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.

The LA Times’ Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard report that Undersheriff Paul Tanaka did not, in fact, announce his retirement earlier this month because “he felt it was time,” (as department spokespersons then maintained). To the contrary, Tanaka left, not by his own choice, but because Sheriff Baca insisted rather firmly that his second in command pull the plug.

This revelation is not exactly news since the sheriff himself said as much to the LA News Group editorial board last week (which we pointed out on Friday).

Moreover, we reported on the issue more than two weeks ago, based on information from a variety of insider sources. We did so here at WLA, and on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA? (although, at the time, we were admittedly a bit more circumspect, in order to politely allow room for the “wanted more time for his family” meme put forth by department spokesman Steve Whitmore).

However, there is one genuinely meaningful piece of news embedded in Monday’s LA times story and that is the last sentence in this paragraph:

One source close to Tanaka said the undersheriff believes Baca views him as a political liability and is trying to use him as a scapegoat for the jail’s problems as the sheriff seeks reelection to a fifth term. That same source, who has spoken with Tanaka, said Tanaka has not ruled out running for sheriff himself, challenging his boss in the 2014 election. [Italics mine]

The fact that Paul Tanaka still believes he can be the next sheriff is both flabbergasting and, sadly, not a surprise at all. Despite the growing string of scandals that follow Tanaka like an elaborate and ever-expanding kite tail, as recently as February, according to well-placed sources inside the department, the undersheriff was still maneuvering to get his own loyalist slates elected to the various boards of the two LASD unions—ALADS and PPOA—–plus LA county’s main law enforcement fraternal organizations, namely BPOA (Black Peace Officer’s Association of Los Angeles County) and HAPCOA (Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association)—with the idea that their combined support could provide signficant help him in a bid for sheriff in 2014.

What a race that would be!—especially if someone untainted by the current scandals comes in from the outside, like Long Beach Chief, Jim McDonnell.

BACA TALKS TO EDITORIAL BOARD OF LA NEWS GROUP AND GETS IMPROVED REVIEWS

The LA News Group includes such newspapers as the LA Daily News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and so on. Earlier this month, the group published a withering critique of Baca, all but calling for his ouster in 2014 when he is up for election.

But after a meeting with Baca this week, while not by any means offering the sheriff any reelection endorsements, the LA News Group’s editorial board was, at least, somewhat less determined to show him the door.

Here’s a clip from the editorial:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca mentioned two personal goals this week: Winning re-election next year and living to 100. In recent months the latter had seemed more likely than the former.
The dedicated runner’s physical fitness wasn’t in doubt, but his fitness for office was. After revelations about the unwarranted use of violence by sheriff’s deputies, Baca initially passed the blame to subordinates. A citizen’s commission probing jail violence cited a “failure of leadership. ”

By last fall, the question had become whether Baca, 70, should resign before scandal or voters forced him out.

But the Lee Baca who visited the Los Angeles News Group editorial board this week, to outline responses to the problems in the Sheriff’s Department, appeared as fully committed and as creative as ever in his approach to his huge job. It is still not clear that Baca deserves a fifth term, any more than it was clear before that he doesn’t. But it is clear that Baca will not be easily brushed aside in 2014.

The question now is whether Baca’s wide-ranging responses to the scandals makes up for his inability to prevent them.

The editorial also mentions that, in answer to questions about the exit of Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, Baca said he managed to “finess” Tanaka into leaving.

Here’s the clip:

…More-impressive responses are Baca’s admissions that much of the ACLU’s criticism is correct, and his actions to get to the systemic roots of issues instead of merely blaming underlings.

One was Baca’s move to “finesse” Undersheriff Paul Tanaka into announcing his retirement – and then to essentially eliminate the position. Baca thinks this removes a barrier to communication between him and assistant sheriffs.

The insistence on using the word “finesse” to describe his ouster of Tanaka is classic Baca….

In other words, the retirement announcement was not about the undersheriff’s sudden urge to play more golf, after all.

For LASD watchers, it’s essential to read the whole editorial.

ASSESSING OUTGOING MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA’S PUBLIC SAFETY REPORT CARD

KPCC’s Frank Stolze talks to a list of LA experts about how Mayor Antonio Villagraigosa should be rated as a public safety mayor.

The reviews are generally good, but qualified with the admonition that Antonio was also the beneficiary of some very good luck.

Villaraigosa’s largest stroke of good fortune was his inheritance of Bill Bratton as LAPD’s chief after James Hahn arguably lost the mayoral election to Antonio because he fired Bernard Parks, “a beloved figure in the black community. Hahn lost his once bedrock support among African-Americans.”

(It should be noted that Parks had come to be roundly loathed by the rank and file, who felt that, as chief, he punished them for small infractions while letting his friends do what they pleased. He also alienated the press, members of the DA’s office, and most of city hall for his obstructive handling of the Rampart investigation.)

But while Villaraigosa may not get credit for bringing Bratton to LA, Stoltze reports he does get credit for working very well with him.

Here’s a clip:

In a sense, Villaraigosa lucked out.

“I think he was the beneficiary of the very tough decision that Jim Hahn made,” said UCLA Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology Jorja Leap, who studies crime in L.A. “I don’t think Jim Hahn is given enough credit.”

Villaraigosa embraced Bratton, who receives a lot of credit for turning the LAPD around and delivering the dramatic drops in crime by introducing new technology and cooperating more with federal agencies. The mayor also deserves praise for working with the chief to repair long-frayed police-community relations, said Alex Alonso, who monitors gangs and policing on his StreetGangs.com website.

“Chief Bratton and Villaraigosa showed up at churches, showed up at community meetings,” Alonso said. “That’s definitely a plus. Going to the ghettto.”

Villaraigosa also is praised, reports Stoltze, for embracing non-law-enforcement-centric strategies for crime reduction.

While she’d like to see more funding for the GRYD program (it receives about $25 million annually), Kayle Shilling of the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater L.A. said she’s glad Villaraigosa embraced the gang strategy along with more police — even if it was four years into his administration.

“There are a lot of different approaches in Los Angeles and I think it just takes folks a little while to get up to speed,” Shilling said. “I think he’s landed in a good place.”

Villaraigosa can hardly take sole credit for the historic crime drop that began before he took office. Community groups — some led by former gang members — are more involved than ever in reducing violence.

“You have a lot of other things going on outside of City Hall and outside of government,” said Alonso of StreetGangs.com. “You have nonprofit organizations, you have a lot of gang intervention workers. The mindset is changing within South L.A.”

But with Villaraigosa’s help, the mindset on how to tackle crime has changed at City Hall, too.

Read and listen to the rest of Frank Stoltze’s report here.

AND JUST A REMINDER….NEXT WEEK THE U.S. SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR THE TWO GAY MARRIAGE CASES

We’ll be linking to what we see to be the best of the commentary. So buckle-up and hang on.

Here, for example, is an explanatory story from Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers.

And here’s an interesting blog post by Amy Davidson in the New Yorker about the non-Prop 8 case, that of Edie Windsor. As she writes, Davidson helpfully links to some of the best essays on the two cases.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck did a couple of back-to-back interviews this week—with KPCC’s Larry Mantle on Wednesday and on Tuesday with KNX1070′s Ed Mertz.

In both instances, the chief said that the department is going to conduct anonymous survey of more than 500 of its officers about issues of racism, discipline, and a list of related issues, the idea being to find out what officers think and experience that they may not be willing to come forward to say.

On Larry Mantle’s show Beck and Mantle also had an interesting exchange about whether or not the chief would ever endorse one local candidate over the other. The answer was NO—”Unless I believed that person was dangerous to the city.” Even then, Beck suggested, he would likely say something behind the scenes, not as a public statement.

This is, of course, quite different than the point of view Sheriff Lee Baca has taken. (In the past, Baca has endorsed candidates for City attorney and for LA’s District Attorney, among others.)

MEANWHILE, LAPD OFFICER EARL WRIGHT FILES RACIAL HARASSMENT SUIT AGAINST LAPD

FoxLA reports on a lawsuit brought by Earl Wright, an LAPD officer alleging racial harassment on the job at LAPD’s Central station, as recently as 2010. (The lawsuit was filed in April 2012, but is just now coming to court.)

Here’s the complaint if you wish to read it. If true, it describes a climate of ongoing racial harassment—with liberal references to watermelon and the n-word. According to the complaint, the harassment was not limited to Wright, but states he observed an Asian American officer being similarly harassed, and also a female colleague, who was allegedly sexually harassed then pressed not to report it. In many cases, the incidents were allegedly caused by same officer who, according to the complaint, supervisors declined to reprimand.

Anyway, read it yourself and see what you think.

NEW LASD ASSISTANT CHIEF TERRI MCDONALD TO BE ON WHICH WAY LA?

The LASD’s new Assistant Chief in charge of custody is scheduled to appear on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA? today Thursday. She is also expected to be interviewed by Patt Morrison for the LA Times in the next day or so.

Here’s the link to the Terri McDonald interview.

CA CONSERVATIVE LAWMAKERS INTRODUCED THEIR PACKET OF REALIGNMENT BILLS ON TUESDAY

The threatened cluster of counter-Realignment bills were introduced into committee on Tuesday. The idea of increasing penalties for those who take off or disable their GPS bracelets (introduced by Sen. Ted Lieu) is one that we think has merit, if written correctly.

As for the rest….we’ll be keeping an eye on them. Public hysteria plus shoddy reporting, like we have too often seen on this topic, usually makes for bad laws.

Don Thompson of the AP has more details on this story.

AND SPEAKING OF LEGISLATION….CONGRESSMAN BOBBY SCOTT WILL BE INTRODUCING THE YOUTH PROMISE ACT TODAY, THURSDAY

We’ve been fans of the Youth Promise Act for a long time. But although it has, in the past, gathered lots of sponsors, it has not gotten very far in terms of passage. But times are changing. Here’s some info on the bill from Scott’s site:

Under the Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education) Act (H.R. 2721), communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime challenges will be able to develop a comprehensive response to youth violence through a coordinated prevention and intervention response. Representatives from local law enforcement, the school system, court services, social services, health and mental health providers, foster care providers, other community and faith-based organizations will form a council to develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies. The plans can be funded up to four years. The act also enhances state and local law enforcement efforts regarding youth and gang violence.

Nothing in the Youth PROMISE Act eliminates any of the current tough on crime laws, and while it is understood that law enforcement will still continue to enforce those laws, research tells us that no matter how tough we are on the people we prosecute today, unless we are addressing the underlying root causes of criminal activity, nothing will change.

Aside from reducing crime and providing better results in the lives of our youth, many of the programs funded under the Youth PROMISE Act will save more money than they cost. The State of Pennsylvania implemented a process very similar to the one provided for in the Youth PROMISE Act in 100 communities across the state. The state found that it saved, on average, $5 for every $1 spent during the study period…

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.

JAILS, JAILS AND MORE JAILS

Tuesday’s LA County Supervisor’s meeting is pretty much the Lee Baca/Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Show. Or so it would seem from glancing at the day’s agenda.

First up will be the recommendation by the County CEO, Bill Fujioka, and Sheriff Baca, that the board approve the first steps in building a $900 million new jail to replace the decrepit, dangerous, and hard to manage, Men’s Central Jail—a facility that everyone agrees has to go (although the sheriff wants to keep and repurpose at least part of the thing as a place to house his education based incarceration program).

Exactly what needs to be build or not built to best handle the county’s inmate population is where the disagareements begin.

UPDATE: THE JAIL CONSTRUCTION DISCUSSION WAS JUST PULLED OFF THIS MORNING’S AGENDA AND REFERRED BACK TO THE CEO. (WISE MOVE.)

Instead, the Board chose far more appropriately to discuss a motion (authored by Sups. Molina and Antonovich) hiring an independent consultant who will provide the Board with a “comprehensive report regarding the Jail Plan within 60 days.”

The motion specifies that the report would be required to delve into, at a minimum:

*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 motion passed unanimously. (Go, Supervisors!)

After that, the supervisors’ meeting will feature a bunch of reports and discussions about what goes on inside the jails, including another progress report on the implementation of the Jails Commission’s recommendations.

Also on the table is the $22 Million that the CEO and the sheriff think that the LASD should be given in order to pay for patrols in the unincorporated areas—which we learned were being given short shrift when an audit of the matter was presented in January. (One would think, as we mentioned last time this topic came up, that the cost of policing the unincorporated areas would be first place to which the sheriff’s would allocate resources, since that particular policing assignment is the department’s most basic reason for being. But….oh, never mind)

More after the meeting.

GROUNDHOG DAY:THE CUSTODY VERSION

The main item on the agenda to watch, of course, is the outcome of that proposal for nearly $1 billion for new jail construction that the CEO has recommended be moved to the first steps, planning stages.

What is perplexing in the matter is the fact that, over a year ago, a very similar proposal was floated by the sheriff and the CEO, giving this proposal a Ground Hog Day-esque quality. At the time, the board asked for an analysis of the real need—or lack thereof—for such a massive expansion of the county’s custody facilities, an analysis that specifically took into consideration such existing pieces of research as the excellent and exhaustive Vera Institute report on the jails and jails population (which, incidentally, the the County commissioned), and the James Austin report, which at the time, was still a month or two away from delivery. The idea was that those reports and any other information of relevance, would be factored into any plans for facility renovation, closure, or building. [For text of Austin report go here.]

I could be wrong, but it does not, off hand, appear that Fujioka and the sheriff have, indeed really made much if any use of those reports—although Baca does talk about alternatives to incarceration for some inmates, which echoes Austin.

But stay tuned.

In the meantime, below you can read the common sense memo from the ACLU about what kind of course they think might best be followed in terms of handling the jails population. The memo outlines a plan (using real math) that Men’s Central Jail could be closed altogether and the jail population could be safely redistributed between existing facilities, without spending $933 million on a snazzy new custody complex.

Here’s the memo itself: Memo BOS re Jail Plan 02192013

MONDAY’S PRESS CONFERENCE AND TWO INTRODUCTIONS

The Sheriff already had a good day on Monday, in his half-hour or so press conference in which he introduced his new big hires—Terri McDonald and Ted Sexton. [See video above.]

The first up was Terri McDonald, the former undersecretary of the California Department of Corrections, who has come on to the department as the new Assistant Sheriff in charge of custody, to take over the long-troubled jails.

McDonald is extremely experienced in custody management, and appears to be a pleasantly no-nonsense person, who handled herself at the press conference with what seemed like the right mix of new-guy humility, and don’t-mess with me seasoned confidence.

Ted Sexton, the longtime sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, who will head the LASD’s Department of Homeland Security, which includes oversight of a number of areas, including the controversy-haunted Aero Bureau. Sexton has a good CV for the job, having served as assistant secretary for state and local law enforcement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for a couple of years. Plus his oldest son, James Sexton, already works for the department, meaning that the new Chief likely has a better feel for the unstated currents in the department than would most people coming in from the outside.

Sexton didn’t have a chance to talk at the press conference as most reporters were asking questions only about the jails, which either Baca or McDonald fielded.

We hope and presume there will be plenty of time for Sexton to take the mic in the future.

LASD Captain Kelley Frazer (see above video) is scheduled to be promoted to the position of commander and will be working under Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald, the recently recruited head of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Custody Division.

Frazer is an openly lesbian officer.

To take the promotion, Frazer will leave her post as the highly-regarded head of the LASD’s West Hollywood station, which she has led since April 2010.

When Frazer was promoted to captain and given charge of WeHo she was, at that time, the first openly gay person in department history to serve as an LASD branch commander.

Prior to WeHo, Frazer worked for the department’s Emergency Operations Bureau, and at Carson, Lennox and Temple stations, among other postings.

So what do her troops think of her?

“She’s Amazing!” said watch commander Lt. William Nash, when I called West Hollywood to get a reading. “It’s really bitter-sweet for us. We’re happy for her, and we know she deserves this opportunity but….she will be missed. She’s a great person. Ask anyone here.”

According to Nash, Fraser “cares for everyone in her command,” really looks out for their well being, and knows how to get the best out of people. “But she’s also a tough as nails as a cop,” said Nash. “She wants to make sure we’re on top of our jobs. She wants us to be safe, but she wants this community to be safe. And she really wants to get the bad guys off the street.”

West Hollywood Mayor, Jeff Prang, told the WeHo News that,”That an out member of the LGBT community now is in the highest ranks of the sheriff’s department is really good for West Hollywood and it’s good for LGBT people.”

Indeed. And with any luck Frazer will be good for the LASD Custody Division.

PREDICTING WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

In a fascinating new study, the National institue for Justice looked at 460 erroneous convictions and “near misses,” in which “factually innocent” defendants were released or acquitted post-indictment, and found that there were 10 factors that were most most often led to a wrongful conviction. We’ve long known the elements that most often went wrong in a wrongful conviction (mistaken or coerced eyewitness testimony, false confessions, perjured informant testimony, etc.) but the study concluded that it was incorrect to call those factors “causes.”

Causes, they found, were different. So what elements, if they appear in combination, are most likely to cause a wrongful conviction? Here are the ten factors they found:

*A younger defendant
*A criminal history
*A weak prosecution case
*Prosecution withheld evidence
*Lying by a non-eyewitness
*Unintentional witness misidentification
*Misinterpreting forensic evidence at trial
*A weak defense
*Defendant offered a family witness
*A “punitive” state culture

Anyway, to find out more, here’s the 410-page study itself. (Scroll to the executive summery.) And here’s a quickie look at the study’s contents at The Crime Report.

THE RIDICULOUS MATTER OF THE SHOT-UP-AND-NEARLY-KILLED NEWSPAPER WOMEN, THEIR LAPD-PROMISED REPLACEMENT TRUCK…AND THE HOT POTATO OF TAXES (!!!)

Surely someone at the LAPD can find a way to cut through this idiotic tax-related impasse… But, evidently so far, they haven’t.

The Huffington Post’s Anna Almendrala has the story. Here’s a clip:

Accusations are flying over the Los Angeles Police Department’s bungled effort to replace a bullet-ridden pickup truck that belonged to two women who were mistaken for fugitive Christopher Dorner one horrifying morning.

Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were delivering newspapers in Torrance, Calif., during the early hours of Feb. 7 when members of the LAPD mistook their blue Toyota Tacoma for Dorner’s getaway car, a gray Nissan Titan pickup. Officers fired 102 bullets into Carranza’s truck. While Carranza was injured by the shattered glass, Hernandez was shot in the back.

Two days after the almost-deadly case of mistaken identity, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck visited the victims’ homes to apologize, and the department publicly promised to give them a new pickup truck by the next week.

Now, more than a month after the shooting, the police still haven’t replaced Carranza’s truck. A prominent car dealership owner and a lawyer representing the two women are pointing fingers about whose fault it is….

Read on.

YOUNG UNDOCUMENTED “DREAMERS” WANT TO KNOW WHY THEY DON’T CAN’T HAVE ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE SINCE THEY ARE, THEY SAY, FOR THE MOMENT ANYWAY, LEGAL

The video above was just released by the The California Endowment, in partnership with a group of undocumented youth in Southern and Central California. It kicked off the Endowment’s new #Health4All campaign, “an effort to drive a dialog about providing a health care solution for the remaining uninsured.”

This earlier story by Drew Joseph for the San Francisco Chronicle explains the issue from the Dreamers’ perspective. Here’s a clip:

California’s young immigrants who have been granted reprieves to stay in the country stand to gain little from the federal health reform law that the state Legislature is working to implement.

The Affordable Care Act excludes illegal immigrants from accessing the law’s benefits, but some immigrant and health advocates are angry that the young people known as Dreamers have been left out, saying the policy contradicts the law’s intent of expanding coverage to more people.

“It really defeats what the goals of the ACA were to begin with,” said Sonal Ambegaokar, health policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center….

Read the rest (and watch the video!)

EDITOR’S NOTE: THERE’S NOT REALLY ANY NEWSWORTHY REASON FOR POSTING THE VIDEO ABOVE OF SHERIFF LEE BACA ON BLACK BELT TV. WE JUST KINDA LIKED IT.)

THE CONSERVATIVE CASE AGAINST MORE PRISONS

The latest issue of The American Conservative has an interesting article by Vikrant Reddy and Marc Levin about how it is conservatives who are leading the charge against lowering America’s prison populations.

Leading the charge might be an overstatement. But conservative groups are having an important and measurable effect on policy, where all but the most liberal of democrats are lagging behind.

The reform of 3-Strikes in California simply would not have passed had it not been for the help of some of the conservatives from the Right on Crime movement.

Plus Right on Crime and related conservative groups like Prison Fellowship Ministries are pushing for reforms of disastrous zero tolerance policies in schools, and in the realm of juvenile justice.

In any case, here are a couple of clips from TAC’s story.

Since the 1980s, the United States has built prisons at a furious pace, and America now has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. 716 out of every 100,000 Americans are behind bars. By comparison, in England and Wales, only 149 out of every 100,000 people are incarcerated. In Australia—famously founded as a prison colony—the number is 130. In Canada, the number is 114.

Prisons, of course, are necessary. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne observed that “The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil… as the site of a prison.” As long as there are people, there will be conflict and crime, and there will be prisons. Prisons, however, are not a source of pride. An unusually high number of prison cells signals a society with too much crime, too much punishment, or both.

There are other ways to hold offenders—particularly nonviolent ones—accountable. These alternatives when properly implemented can lead to greater public safety and increase the likelihood that victims of crime will receive restitution. The alternatives are also less costly. Prisons are expensive (in some states, the cost of incarcerating an inmate for one year approaches $60,000), and just as policymakers should scrutinize government expenditures on social programs and demand accountability, they should do the same when it comes to prison spending. None of this means making excuses for criminal behavior; it simply means “thinking outside the cell” when it comes to punishment and accountability.

[SNIP]

Between 1992 and 2011, the U.S. prison population increased by nearly 73 percent. To the extent that the recent rise in incarceration incapacitated violent offenders, it was valuable. For nonviolent offenders who are not career criminals, however, incarceration can be counterproductive. As is sometimes said, prisons are graduate schools for crime. This is more than apparent in numerous states where recidivism rates exceed 60 percent.

Unnecessary incarceration of nonviolent, low-level offenders also destroys families. Mitch Pearlstein at Minnesota’s Center of the American Experiment has pointed out that incarcerated men “are less attractive marriage partners, not just because they may be incarcerated, but because rap sheets are not conducive to good-paying, family-supporting jobs.” It is common sense that neighborhoods suffering from high incarceration rates also suffer a plague of single-parent homes and troubled children.

This, in turn, leads to dysfunctional communities that are mistrustful of law enforcement. Most American children are taught that they may always ask the police for help. In some American neighborhoods, however, children are taught never to engage with the police.

For this—high recidivism rates, ravaged families, and maladjusted neighborhoods—Americans pay dearly. In 2011, Americans spent over $63 billion on corrections, a 300 percent increase since 1980. Prisons are the second-fastest growing component of state budgets, trailing only Medicaid….

Read more here.

YES, THERE HAVE BEEN SOME ANECDOTAL PROBLEMS WITH REALIGNMENT, BUT THE PROBLEMS WE’D HAVE HAD WITHOUT COULD HAVE BEEN FAR WORSE

I realize we’re starting to get boring on this topic. But a refreshingly sane editorial in the Ventura County Star, gave us an opportunity to harp on this issue that has been dreadfully reported by many journalists around the state (with some notable exceptions, like the LA Times, which has been great).

Here’s a clip from the VC Star Op Ed by Thomas Elias:

As crime statistics for 2012 gradually filter in from around the state, gripes about the 15-month-old prison realignment program have begun rising in newspaper headlines and talk show airwaves.

There are two major complaints: One is that crime rose as realignment cut the inmate populace by more than 24,000.

The other is that some criminals are being released earlier than before the program began in October 2011, in part because local jails in a few counties are overcrowded.

A typical gripe comes from Tyler Izen, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the state’s largest police union. “Our members are terribly concerned that we are allowing people out of prisons who are likely to recommit crimes and victimize the people of our city,” he said in a telephone interview.

He claimed probation departments have lost track of some former prisoners, but could offer no specific examples. “All I have is anecdotal information,” he conceded.

It turns out that only one of those big gripes has any proven merit…

Read the rest here.

SOME FINE-TUNING OF REALIGNMENT LIKELY TO COME BEFORE THE STATE LEGISLATURE

California legislators are introducing a cluster of bills, each of which would fine tune some part of the realignment structure put into place by California’s massive AB109.

The Capital View reports:

Democratic Assembly members Susan Talamantes Eggman, of Stockton, and Ken Cooley, of Rancho Cordova, introduced Assembly Bill 601 to allow parole violators to be returned to state prison for up to one year.

AB 2, authored by Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, would return sex offenders who violate their parole back to prison “to serve any sentence ordered for that violation.”

Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, earlier proposed Senate Bill 57, which would make removal of a GPS monitoring device an additional crime requiring a prison sentence of 16 months, two years or three years

WitnessLA agrees that some fine tuning and closing of certain loopholes is needed, but the devil will be in the details. What we do not want to see is an emotional rush to return to the bad old days that produced overcrowded prisons with little or no positive effect on public safety.

PREDICTIVE POLICING: THE PROS AND CONS OF USING ALGORITHMS TO DRIVE PROACTIVE COP WORK

The LAPD has been running a pilot program of a strategy called predictive policing that uses a combination of updated crime statistics, technology and algorithms to predict areas ripe for crime so that police can be ready and move in to prevent crime and/or make arrests in the moment rather than trying to solve the crimes afterward.

The program, known as PredPro, has reportedly been used so successfully in the LAPD;s Foothill Division that now other places like Santa Cruz and, more recently Seattle have signed up as a way to police smarter in an era of budget cutting.

An intriguing article in the Gardian by columnist/author Evgany Morzov cautions that, while the program seems very promising now, targeting crime before it happens can be a mighty slippery slope.

Here’s a clip from the close of his story:

The promise of predictive policing might be real, but so are its dangers. The solutionist impulse needs to be restrained. Police need to subject their algorithms to external scrutiny and address their biases. Social networking sites need to establish clear standards for how much predictive self-policing they’ll actually do and how far they will go in profiling their users and sharing this data with police. While Facebook might be more effective than police in predicting crime, it cannot be allowed to take on these policing functions without also adhering to the same rules and regulations that spell out what police can and cannot do in a democracy. We cannot circumvent legal procedures and subvert democratic norms in the name of efficiency alone.

And, of course, it bears remembering that it was those Masters of the Algorithmic Universe—the Wall Street genius “quants”—who, to a great degree brought us the 2008. So, yeah, full speed ahead, but with ethics intact, and a good hold on common sense and caution.

I’m on KCRW’s Which Way LA? Thursday night with the always excellent Warren Olney talking about undersheriff Paul Tanaka’s abrupt announcement of his retirement.

Peter Eliasberg, the Legal Director for the ACLU of Southern California was also on the show and Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore. The combination made for….a lively discussion.

To hear the show, you can either tune in at 7 pm at KCRW 89.9 FM, or listen online.

Here’s a direct link to the PODCAST. The segment on the undersheriff’s retirement announcement begins at about minute: 1.38

LINKS:

When you listen to the show, you’ll note there was a discussion about testimony given by Undersheriff Paul Tanaka at the Jails Commission hearing, and some dispute about what the undersheriff said and didn’t say, and in what context. Since these are all questions that can be quickly resolved by looking at either the transcript from the hearing or listening to the audio, you’ll find those links below.

Hearing Transcript: CCJV, July 27, 2012

Hearing Audio: CCJV, July 27, 2012, Part 2, Paul Tanaka Testimony

POST SCRIPT: Light posting right Friday. But back in full force on Monday.

As for the Tanaka retirement story, we are told there are more surprises coming soon, and we’re deep in conversations about these and related issues.

HE’S OUT

Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, the #2 person in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department command structure right under Sheriff Lee Baca, announced his resignation on Wednesday during the sheriff’s Executive Planning Committee.

For most Los Angeles residents the announcement of the undersheriff’s exit was of little consequence. People were, of course, very familiar with LA’s popular—if now beleaguered—Sheriff Lee Baca, but Tanaka—the sheriff’s right hand man and longtime consigliere—had always flown largely under the media radar.

Yet for those inside and close to the nation’s fourth largest policing agency, the departure of the undersheriff was of enormous significance. The big question for Tanaka’s supporters and detractors, was what exactly did this abrupt leave-taking mean?

To begin with, according to department sources, the announcement was stunningly unexpected, and was greeted by most among the executive group who first heard it with genuine shock.

The official press release, which was put out hastily at mid-afternoon on Wednesday, did little to answer any questions. It began:

Undersheriff Paul Tanaka today announced his retirement to the Sheriff and the Department’s executive staff. His retirement will be effective August 1, 2013….

Then the release ticked off some of the undersheriff’s postings and accomplishments during his 33 years on the job with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and little more.

Those familiar with county employment rules guessed that the August 1 exit date was likely picked because it is shortly after the undersheriff’s 55th birthday in July. And fifty-five is the magic age for LA County employees who wish to get their full retirement.

But of course the real question was not so much when Mr. Tanaka was leaving, as it was why?**

THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN LOS ANGELES YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

It is hard to find a more polarizing figure in contemporary Los Angeles law enforcement than Paul Tanaka.

Until recently, Tanaka has been viewed as a sort-of shadow sheriff, the person behind Sheriff Lee Baca whom many saw as holding the real power in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

WitnessLA’s Matt Fleischer first broke the news in December 2011 that the largely unknown Mr. Tanaka wielded a startling amount of control in the LASD, which—-with 18,000 employees—is the largest sheriff’s department in the world, and runs the nation’s largest jail system.

Since our report, Tanaka has come under scrutiny by the FBI for his part in what has been described as a culture of violence inside Men’s Central Jail, and he may also be the focus of a federal grand jury probe into allegations that LASD management ordered jails personnel to hide an FBI informant from his handlers by moving the man in secret from place to place inside the county jail system, using a string of phony names and false inmate ID numbers.

Starting in early 2012, WitnessLA issued a series of additional reports on what was widely perceived inside the department as a system of patronage run by Mr. Tanaka, in which loyalty and, in many cases, cash donations to Tanaka’s political campaigns, were rewarded when it came to promotions—instead of merit.

(NOTE: Along with being the LASD undersheriff, Tanaka is the mayor of the city of Gardena.)

(See reports on alleged pay-to-play here, here and here.)

In February, the reports caused Supervisor Gloria Molina to introduce a motion to prohibit county supervisors from asking for or accepting campaign contributions.

As the year wore on, the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence—which included four federal judges and a chief of police—delved further into the undersheriff’s practices as they investigated the jail violence in general. In their final report, issued in September 2012, the commission stopped just short of ordering the sheriff to fire Tanaka, but they critiqued what they saw as the undersheriff’s mismanagement and misconduct in the harshest of terms, and strongly advised that he be removed from any oversite of the custody division, and even suggested—albiet delicately, as it was outside their mission—that the same prohibition apply to any Tanaka oversight of street patrol. Here is a snippet of what they wrote:

“The troubling role of Undersheriff Tanaka cannot be ignored. Not only did he fail to identify and correct problems in the jails, he exacerbated them. The Commission learned about his ill-advised statements and decisions from a wide array of witnesses and sources. Over the course of several years, the Undersheriff encouraged deputies to push the legal boundaries of law enforcement activities and created an environment that discouraged accountability for misconduct. His repeated statements that deputies should work in an undefined “grey” area contributed to a perception by some deputies that they could use excessive force in the jails and that their aggressive behavior would not result in discipline”

The 194-page report went on in that vein, including a description of the “belief,” among deputies regarding the unaccountably powerful undersheriff who seemed to skip, at will, over the department’s paramilitary chain-of-command, “that patronage and favoritism matter more than merit.”

Shortly after the report was delivered, the sheriff forced into retirement several of those who who had some responsibility for the deputy-abuse-of-jail-inmates scandal—most notably Assistant Sheriff Marvin Cavanaugh, and Chief of Custody Operations. Dennis Burns. Yet Baca seemed stubbornly disinclined to hold his second-in-command accountable, telling the Citizen’s Commission during his testimony last year, that he had no intention of disciplining or getting rid of the undersheriff, that he was too crucial, particularly when it cames to balancing the department’s $2.5 billion budget.

“Paul Tanaka is uniquely suited to be the undersheriff,” Baca said. “When you go through two recessions, you need a CPA.”

(Among his other skills, Tanaka is a certified public accountant.)

Nevertheless, in a nod to the commission’s allegations, the sheriff announced that the department had launched an internal affairs investigation into the undersheriff’s conduct. He also insisted that, from there on out, the undersheriff would mostly be the department’s CFO, applying his magic to the budget, but would no longer have any control over the jails or the patrol divisions, or over the investigative bureaus like internal affairs, which Tanaka had taken over for a period.

Yet, at the same time, as recently as late last October, Baca continued to defend Tanaka both in public and in private.

As the year came to a close, however, Baca’s attitude reportedly took a measurable turn. Sources inside and close to the department tell us of “an uneasy rift” between Mr. Tanaka and the sheriff in the last few months, which became “very noticeable” before Christmas 2012.

“I think that all the things began to add up for the sheriff,” said one source. “The talk of pay-to-play, the cigar club, the whole thing of working the grey, the way the federal investigations were handled, the problems in the jails, and all the rest.”

Another source said that Baca was also upset when Tanaka, who had promised the sheriff that he would not run for mayor of Gardena again, pulled out of the race after first registering and scaring off most other candidates, but pulling out so late that his name had to remain on the all-ready-printed ballot. Then, although he professed non-interest in running, he allowed fundraising and a surrogate campaign in his behalf to be launched by the Gardena Police Department, reportedly complete with clusters of Tanaka yard signs blooming on lawns all over the city.

Tanaka was easily re-elected mayor of Gardena on Tuesday. His retirement was abruptly announced on Wednesday.

SO WHO LEFT WHOM?

Counter to what sources inside and close to the department tell us, according to Sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Whitmore, the decision to leave was Tanaka’s alone, that he simply felt it was time to move on, and that the sheriff himself only learned of the undersheriff’s retirement plans on Tuesday, the day before the announcement.

Mr. Whitmore said that Tanaka has chosen to retire in order to spend more time with his family. “When I talked to him about it,” said Whitmore, “he pointed to a picture of his three-and-a-half year old son that sits behind his desk and told me, ‘That’s why!’ You have to remember,” said Whitmore, “the undersheriff is 54, so he didn’t become a father until he was past 50.”

The department “is losing a dedicated public servent,” said Whitmore. “He will be sorely missed. His departure leaves a big hole.”

When queried, Whitmore said that the internal affairs investigation into allegations against Tanaka will continue, despite the undersheriff’s announcement.

He also said that, in Tanaka’s time remaining on the job, he will shepherd the department’s budget to its completion date in June.

WHAT EFFECT WILL TANAKA’S DEPARTURE HAVE?

If Paul Tanaka’s resignation/retirement leaves a hole, as Steve Whitmore suggests, what does that newly-opened gap portend?

Miriam Krinsky, the Jail’s Commission’s executive director, reiterated the “troubling reports” about Tanaka that the commission uncovered in the course of its investigations, and characterized the undersheriff’s exit as very welcome news that is potentially favorable for the department.

“I certainly hope,” she said, “that the decision of the undersheriff provides the department with the opportunity to look for someone who can help create a new and really positive culture in the jails.”

Peter Eliasberg, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, was also surprised and pleased by the news.

“Any time you’re talking about changing the culture of a large organization, a big part is making sure that the right people are in charge and the wrong people aren’t. The change of one person like Tanaka isn’t a silver bullet, but I think it’s potentially quite significant.

Both Krinsky and Eliasberg emphasized that much will depend on who replaces Paul Tanaka.

According to Steve Whitmore, however, Sheriff Baca is “not considering any replacement” for the departing undersheriff, at least not for a while.

POST SCRIPT

It has long been actively rumored that much of Paul Tanaka’s management style has been aimed at gathering a base of power in order to succeed Lee Baca as sheriff of LA County.

Last summer, in fact, former LASD Commander Robert Olmsted told me that Tanaka had unapologetically confided to him that the reason he needed to ensure that the “right” people were in supervisory positions in the department, was so that those loyalists were in place when he, Tanaka, became sheriff. “He said Waldie (who was then the undersheriff) Cavanaugh and the Sheriff are all old, and that they would be retiring very soon, and he expected to hold the position after Sheriff Baca, ‘for the next fifteen years.’”

Unbelievably, even with the storm of scandals ever-quickening around Tanaka, as recently as the past few months, the undersheriff was reportedly working behind the scenes to make sure “his” people were elected to crucial positions on the boards of the two LASD unions—ALADS and PPOA—plus LA county’s law enforcement fraternal organizations like BPOA (Black Peace Officer’s Association of Los Angeles County) and HAPCOA (Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association)—all organizations that, if they lined up behind a single candidate, could have a significant influence.

On Wednesday, however, Mr. Tanaka told Daily Breeze reporter Sandy Mazza that he has no plans to run for Los Angeles County Sheriff.

But then again, Tanaka also said repeatedly that he was not running for Mayor of Gardena. Yet, on Wednesday, the day he announced his retirement, he officially accepted the post for a third term.

LINKS TO TANAKA TESTIMONY: When I was on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA? on Thursday, there was discussion about testimony given by Undersheriff Paul Tanaka at the Jail’s Commission hearing, and some dispute about what the undersheriff said and in what context. With those questions in mind, here’s a link to the transcript from the hearing and also a link to the audio from that same hearing. In addition to providing some excellent background information into the problems inside the jails that were being investigated, this hearing in particular is great theater.

** This section of this story was expanded on March 10, 2013