REPORT GIVES RECOMMENDATIONS ON HOW TO BETTER CATCH AND PREVENT CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT
On Tuesday, the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (ICAN) presented a colossal, 310-page report on child abuse and neglect in LA County to LASD Sheriff Jim McDonnell and LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.
The council, brought into being by the LA County Board of Supervisors in the ’70s, gathers data from—and direct recommendations to—county agencies that have a role in child safety and welfare.
Among the more noteworthy recommendations, was a call for the Department of Children and Family Services, Probation, LASD, LAPD and other agencies to share case information with hospital staff to help identify and prevent (or treat) child abuse. The report points out that the 63 LA County-area hospitals, which see 400 injured toddlers and newborns every day, may not have adequate abuse and neglect screening in place, highlighting the need for structured inter-agency information sharing.
There were 181,926 referrals to DCFS of child abuse or neglect during 2014, up 3% over the previous year, and the highest referral rate in nearly two decades. The report suggests that the increase in referrals may have played some part in the county’s decrease in the number of kids killed by parents or caregivers, which dropped from 19 in 2013 to 15 in 2014. “It appears that more referrals result in safer children,” the report reads.
The report points out that LA County, which oversees the nation’s largest child welfare system, is uniquely positioned to serve as a model for other cities, counties, and states.
Read the rest of the recommendations and dive into the report: here.
“HUMAN FRAILTY” AND THE LIMITATIONS OF REHABILITATION STRATEGIES FOR REDUCING RECIDIVISM
The Boston Reentry Study, which followed 135 male and female state prisoners as they returned to their Boston neighborhoods between 2012 and 2013, found their subjects experienced a high degree of childhood trauma (including violence at home), and were often previously victims of the same violent crimes for which they were later incarcerated.
In an op-ed for the New Yorker, Harvard sociologist Bruce Western, one of the Boston Reentry researchers, found what he termed an underlying vulnerability, or “human frailty,” among some former offenders. Western says that drug addiction and mental illness, often co-occurring with physical maladies, stack the odds against former offenders trying to successfully reenter society. This points to a need for healing interventions much earlier than rehabilitation and other treatment programs can provide, if we really want to reduce prison populations and recidivism rates, Western says. Here are some clips (but go over and read the whole thing, as it’s an interesting take on a complex issue):
It’s no surprise that physical and mental problems go together. Addicts often struggle with issues like chronic pain or manifestations of post-traumatic stress; physical ailments can feed depression and other emotional problems. Those who study poverty and inequality often point to the poor schooling and bad work histories of disadvantaged people. But disadvantage can run much deeper than educational failure and unemployment. In many cases, it has a physical reality that limits a person’s capacity to think clearly, without pain, and to bring energy to daily affairs. Sometimes, a feedback loop takes hold. People with physical- and mental-health problems spend disproportionate time in community health clinics and other institutions for the vulnerable and poor; such places can both help and hurt them. During Aman’s time at Bridgewater, for example, he received treatment for his schizophrenia but was also assaulted by another inmate.
Over the course of the Boston Reentry Study, my team and I wrestled with the problem of how to describe the vulnerability of people like Aman. Ultimately, we settled on “human frailty,” borrowing a term from demographers who study patterns of death across the population. More ambiguous alternatives, like “vulnerability,” could describe the condition of a healthy person who finds him or herself in an unhealthy situation. “Human frailty,” by contrast, inheres within an individual’s mind and body. It persists even when your environment changes.
Among the people we interviewed, mental and physical frailty were startlingly common. In many cases, those frailties derailed their efforts to become better parents, children, neighbors, and citizens.
[SNIP]
The lesson we can learn from frail prisoners like Aman and Carla is that life is a one-way street. Rehabilitative programs are often too little, too late; we need to intercede early. In talking about their lives, our respondents often recalled schools that were unable to respond to serious behavioral or learning problems except through suspension or expulsion. They described how their slides into heroin or crack addiction led straight into the criminal-justice system, rather than into an addiction program. They described using marijuana or heroin to ameliorate chronic mental or physical pain that had gone untreated for years. Our social safety net focusses most of its limited resources on poor mothers, their children, and the elderly; unattached adults often slip through it. It’s only after untreated addiction and mental illness lead to arrests and incarceration that they get help. By investing more in drug treatment, health care, and housing programs, we could offer a basic level of material and bodily security for people with broken minds and bodies who must try and adjust to life after prison.
A realistic public policy, moreover, needs to recognize that stable housing, employment, and a functional family life may be out of reach for the most fundamentally disadvantaged. In these cases, human dignity can at least be respected by enabling the effort to struggle for it. This means, sometimes, providing a place to stay, a transitional job, and support for families even when the outcome is uncertain. In these cases, the struggle itself is intrinsically meaningful. It is meaningful for clients who might envision a better future. It is also meaningful for society as a whole to do something more than abandon the least capable among us. This is difficult ground for our criminal-justice system. From the perspective of human frailty, a program that barely reduces recidivism may still succeed in the formidable challenge of treating with decency people convicted of violence who have struggled all their lives with mental illness, addiction, and disability.
LA COUNTY SHERIFF DISCUSSES TOM ANGEL, PROP 47, AND MORE ON AIRTALK
On KPCC’s AirTalk, Los Angeles Sheriff Jim McDonnell talked with host Larry Mantle about the Tom Angel scandal, why deputies shot into moving cars so many times in 2015(link), what effect former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka’s recent conviction has on the department, and Prop. 47’s savings.
Here are some clips:
…LAPD claims it shot into two vehicles during the years 2010-2014. In both incidents, officers said that the suspects were armed. With the Sheriff’s Department, there were nine times between 2010 and 2014 where deputies fired into the vehicles. In only one case was the person armed with a gun. What’s your response? Do you think those statistics are troubling?
It’s something I want to take a much closer look at. I’m thankful to KPCC for doing the study and giving us some data to look at. I looked at 2015, and we had eight incidents involving shooting at vehicles. Four of those eight incidents have been reviewed administratively by our executive force review committee. Two of those four cases reviewed by the committee contained policy violations, so we’ll deal with those within the system. Four cases in 2015 are still in the review process. There were two shooting-at-vehicle incidents so far in 2016, and they’re both still under review. I believe the unions are in the review process right now with a new and improved policy to make it clearer to folks what our expectations are with regard to shooting at moving vehicles. Across the board, I think there’s universal agreement that it’s not particularly effective, there is potential danger to bystanders and others, and if you can get out of the way of the moving vehicle that’s really goal number one.
So, typically in an investigation, if there is firing on a moving car, the key is going to be whether the deputy felt like he or she was under imminent threat of injury by the vehicle. Will that be the determinant here?
Ultimately, that would be for any use of force. For shooting at a moving vehicle, if the vehicle is the weapon and the individual is not posing an additional threat with a gun or some other type of weapon, our direction on that is do not shoot at the vehicle and move out of the way. We don’t say that universally. There are situations that could arise where it could be an appropriate use of force, where using force in that manner would stop their ability to hurt others. That’s very risky and it’s not a good practice overall, but there are some situations where you come down to the end of the line and you don’t have an alternative.
[SNIP]
Your chief of staff Tom Angel resigned last week after publication of emails he sent while the assistant [police] chief in Burbank. He’d forwarded jokes that made fun of different racial, ethnic, and religious groups. I know it’s a personnel matter, which limits what you can say, but in a case like that with an employee found responsible for something like this, why isn’t an apology sufficient?
Look at the business we’re in. It’s all based on our relationship with the communities we serve. Los Angeles County is probably one of the most diverse counties in the world. It’s critical that we have a great relationship with all of those communities to do our job as well as it can be done. I was quoted as saying that I did not intend to discipline, but the conversation actually was that I had to speak with county council to determine what discipline was available to us because happened four years prior and when he was with another organization. We’ve done a lot of community outreach and are looking at this as an opportunity for all of us to take away some lessons learned and to repair relationships with our community.
ICAN cover art by Eugene Park.
Wow! After Friday’s Channel 7 in-studio interview debacle where the sheriff claimed ignorance on what to do about the Tom Angel email scandal (decision being delayed because of the complexity of labor law), it appears he is doubling down again and sticking with his “had to check with County Counsel” position.
It is disingenuous at best for a man who has been a police executive for a couple of decades, to state publicly that he doesn’t know what to do about one of his at-will executive level employees. How about, “Tom, I love you man, but you really screwed up and you’re bringing massive embarrassment to the Department. You’re going to have to go.”
Further into the KPCC interview, the sheriff was asked about the Fallout from the conviction of Tanaka and how it affects the department today. His response about the biggest challenge, in part: keeping the best of the culture while making the changes that need to be made in order to be able to move forward.
In my humble opinion, his biggest challenge is being a straight shooter, being forthright, and completely honest. He has not done so in his handling and his public statements about the email scandal. Very, very disappointing.
Umm Sheriff, there are a few policies on the books that covers the very scenario you were speaking about. Statue of limitations for being an idiot and your chief of staff carries over.
So stupid to keep being stupid about this. Say angel was a racist ass and you should have fired him. Instead you are defending your flawed methodology that contrasts the reality for deputies.
Bet you didn’t think you would still be talking about this did you? I think the buttons need your attention again.
Ok, before everyone starts throwing rocks at my car consider the following: Tom screwed up but he didn’t kill anyone, no Domestic Violence, Drunk Driving, being drunk as a LT when you should should be at a call out, visiting prostitutes while on duty at a Narco convention in Texas or covering up various crimes. But, yet Waldie and Baca ordered the hiring(LA County Police)of all the above and these crooks are still on the job? Once again McD is out of touch and doesn’t have the courage to effect change.
Add, I viewed that King interview with so-called Captain Mauldin who stressed the integrity of IAB investigations. I wonder did Mauldin showed off his gang tattoo?
It’s going to be years before this agency rights itself. And sadly, we can no longer wait on Sheriff McGoo!
Whenever you log on to a Department computer, you have to acknowledge the current training reminder posting, by clicking an “Acknowledgement” button that you have read the information.
The current one is a picture of President’s Washington and Lincoln with, “HONESTY IS NOT ONLY THE BEST POLICY, IT’S DEPARTMENT POLICY. Nothing about honesty has changed. For clarification about what constitutes dishonesty refer to Manual of Policy and Procedures 3-01/040.69.”
So, I wonder….
Maybe the Sheriff never logs on to a Department computer?
Maybe there is a different training reminder for the Captains and above?
Maybe he has seen it? And didn’t have to hit the acknowledgement button? Had an aide….maybe a Chief of Staff, run in and hit the button for him?
@4 I agree with you. We see the policy of the department every time we log on. But from what I see in the department there are still quite a number of dishonest employees who could care less about honesty. And some of the captains could care less also. I called the Sheriffs office regarding help in a situation at my unit of assignment. I explained to his secretary but her attitude was indifferent. She blew me off and could have cared less. She represents his office because the calls going into his office starts with her. She obviously represents how he feels and runs the department.
And how he runs the department
I am the only one who can lie. Policy does not apply to me. Morale, who needs it. Celeste write stories about me. I am perfect I have never made a mistake. Your sheriff.