FEDERAL JUDGES PREPARED TO RULE ON HOW CALIFORNIA WILL ALLEVIATE PRISON OVERCROWDING
A federal three-judge panel gave Gov. Jerry Brown and prison advocates until last Friday to come to an agreement on how to comply with the judges’ prison population reduction order. The deadline passed by with no agreement. On Monday, the judges issued an order giving Gov. Jerry Brown and prisoner advocates until Thursday, Jan. 23 to file their respective proposals for compliance, after which the judges will order their own solution. (If this is unfamiliar to you, read more of the backstory here.)
The LA Times’ Paige St. John has the story. Here are some clips:
The judges Monday gave Brown and lawyers for inmates until Jan. 23 to file proposed terms “to achieve durable compliance” with crowding limits that were to go into effect April 18. They said they will push that ultimate deadline back by however long it takes the jurists to decide their own solution.
That means, for now, California will still be blocked from expanding its contracts with private prison operators for cells out of state. And it means a short delay before Brown and state lawmakers learn if California will need to spend a planned $315 million to expand private prison leases, or just $228 million to keep those lease contracts at their current level. If the crowding deadline is pushed back to 2016, as Brown seeks, the governor pledges to give $81 million of the savings to counties for prisoner rehabilitation programs.
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In the absence of a deal, Brown revealed last week that he is immediately expanding state parole programs for the frail and elderly, and increasing early release eligibility for some repeat offenders. Those steps would make some 2,200 prisoners eligible for release, but state officials previously told the court they expect only about 440 inmates would actually be freed within the first six months of those programs.
(KQED also reported on this issue and included a copy of the court order.)
Prophet Walker, who, at 16, was sentenced to six years in prison for breaking another boy’s jaw during a fist fight, is now running for California State Assembly, with the help of some serious mentors and supporters (namely “Hangover” producer Scott Budnick and Carol Biondi, commissioner of the LA County Commission for Children and Families) and his own perseverance. Prophet made incredible use of his time in prison (helping to transform the system along the way), and went on to receive an engineering degree from Loyola Marymount upon his release. (WitnessLA met Prophet, and found him quite impressive.)
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Cohn has Walker’s cheering story for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Here are some clips:
His mother was a heroin addict, and his neighborhood was filled with racial strife between blacks and Hispanics. Walker, the son of a white mother and black father, got into fights often, believing that physical violence was the key to his survival. One day while ditching school, Walker and his friends got into a fight with a group of Hispanic teenagers. Walker fractured another boy’s jaw, and was arrested. Then 16, he was tried as an adult and convicted of assault causing great bodily harm. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
But this is a story of hope and redemption, not despair, one that links the disparate worlds of Los Angeles’ ghetto neighborhoods with the glamour of Hollywood. It is the story of how Walker, with the help of movie producer Scott Budnick (“The Hangover”) and his own fierce determination, overcame his difficult circumstances and transformed his life into a success story.
“Prophet is truly an extraordinary person,” says Carol Oughton Biondi, a commissioner of the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families and a director of the Washington, D.C.-based Children’s Defense Fund. “He will excel at anything he wants to do. He is the real, real deal.”
Walker’s transformation began while still in prison. With Budnick as his mentor, he participated in a program called InsideOUT Writers, which uses creative writing to help currently and formerly jailed young adults transform their lives. He earned his high school degree while behind bars, but that was only the beginning.
He helped devise a Youthful Offender Pilot Program to allow juvenile offenders to pursue an education in safer settings, such as medium-security prison, rather than being thrown in high-security prisons that offered few opportunities. Budnick helped persuade state prison officials to adopt the pilot program, which has since been expanded.
After being released from prison, Walker graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in engineering, helped design an innovative robotic garage in Santa Monica and became a project manager for Morley Builders, a prominent southern California construction company. And today Walker, now 26 years old and the father of an 8-year-old daughter, is running for the California state Assembly from the 64th district, which represents Carson, Compton, Watts, Wilmington and North Long Beach.
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Carol Biondi says that Walker’s background – and the fact that he has overcome his past – could actually be more of an asset than a liability in his race for the Assembly seat in the 64th District.
“I honestly think it’s mostly an asset because the mass incarceration of men in his district is out of control,” says Biondi. “The fact that he went [to prison], and really shouldn’t have for a fight, is outrageous. He was never gang involved. It was his first offense. He was an honor student. He holds absolutely no bitterness or anger about it and takes responsibility for his action. And he showed courage throughout his time there. But most important, he triumphed over the experience. Every mother either has a son who is or was on probation, is or has been locked up or lives in fear he will be. They all have husbands, brothers or cousins that are in the system. He is the hope for all of them.”
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY’S SUCCESSFUL USE OF SPLIT-SENTENCING FOR AB 109’ERS
Contra Costa County uses split-sentencing (where sentences are divided into part jail time, part probation) for most of its realignment cases. Preliminary data shows that while Contra Costa is seeing fewer than 25% of its probationers returning to jail, almost two-thirds of state parolees reoffend.
LA and other counties that have under-utilized split sentencing, thus far, but Gov. Brown’s proposed budget would set aside money for split-sentencing. That budget banks on the federal panel of judges giving the state a two-year deadline reprieve on reducing the prison population.
Sara Hossaini has the story for KQED’s California Report. Here’s a clip from the transcript, but do go take a listen:
…The county leads the state in so-called “split-sentencing.” Other counties, like LA and Fresno, have been slower to try this approach, even though it’s the lynchpin of California’s 2011 prison realignment law, AB 109. John Kennedy is a district judge for Contra Costa County. He says the county decided pretty early on that split-sentencing would be their focus: “We have to design a sentence that is going to be most effective in deterring recidivism. We think that it’s been helpful to have everybody working together, because, as you know, the vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by plea agreement.”
JURY FINDS FULLERTON OFFICERS NOT GUILTY IN KELLY THOMAS CASE — FBI MAY INVESTIGATE FURTHER
On Monday, an Orange County jury acquitted two former Fullerton police officers in the beating to death of Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic homeless man. The FBI says they will examine the trial evidence to decide whether further investigation is needed.
The LA Times’ Paloma Esquivel and Robert J. Lopez have the latest on this story.