EDITOR’S NOTE: After a few months hiatus, Taylor Walker is back posting at WLA. And we’re delighted to have her!
(Matt Fleischer is working on some new WLA stories so you’ll be seeing him back here shortly, as well.)
THE AFFECT OF CA’S HUGE MENTAL HEALTH CUTS ON INCARCERATION
Amid all the kerfuffle last week over the interview with You-Know-Who, we missed a few important stories, most notable among them was a Mother Jones feature on cutting mental-health funding across the US, and the collateral affect on crime and incarceration. California was ranked among the highest budget-cutters with an alarming 21% cut over the last three years. The unintended consequences of those cuts that Mother Jones outlines should cause every policy maker to take note.
Here are some of the highlights:
California ($3,612.8 million in 2009 to $2,848 million in 2012, -21.2 percent): Inmates with severe mental illness often wait three to six months for a state psychiatric hospital bed. In 2007, 19 percent of state prisoners were mentally ill. By 2012, 25 percent were.
[SNIP]For every $2,000 to $3,000 per year spent on treating the mentally ill, $50,000 is saved on incarceration costs.
Prisoners with mental illness cost the nation an average of nearly $9 billion a year.
In 1955, there was one psychiatric bed for every 300 Americans. In 2010, there was one psychiatric bed for every 7,100 Americans—the same ratio as in 1850.
LASD PERMANENT CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT PANEL
In 1992, the Kolts Commission recommended that a civilian oversight panel be established for the LA Sheriff’s Dept. In an Op-ed for the LA Times, civil rights attorney R. Samuel Paz points out that two decades—and a few more recommendations—later, there is still no permanent civilian oversight. The LAPD has the police commission; the LASD has nothing equivalent.
Here are some clips from Paz’s essay.
The Kolts Commission then, just as the jails commission now, rejected the sheriff’s argument that civilian oversight was unnecessary because, as an elected official, he was accountable to the public. The commission noted: “Indeed, we know of no major metropolitan police department in the United States which is not subject to some civilian oversight — except the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
[SNIP]The jails commission found the present oversight systems ineffective and inadequate. L.A. County Special Counsel Merrick Bobb’s frequent reports on systemic problems and the necessary reforms to fix them were ignored by the sheriff and lacked any enforcement mechanism or follow-up capability. The oversight by the Office of Independent Review, which was created in 2001 to monitor use-of-force and misconduct investigations, was found to be ineffective, ignored or changed by management. It also has been hampered by Sheriff’s Department officials withholding key documents on use of force in jails, in violation of the understanding that the Office of Independent Review was to have “unfettered access” to records. The ombudsman, which the jails commission described as the “clearinghouse for public complaints,” was found to be woefully inadequate in identifying patterns in complaints by civilians.
MILLION DOLLAR DETAINEE
The Pentagon spends an astronomical $900,000 on each Guantanamo detainee per year. Eek and egad! Surely this money can be put to better use elsewhere?
Reuters has the story. Here’s a clip:
The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.
By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.
LAPD INTERNAL AFFAIRS CHANGE-UP
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is reassigning three deputy chiefs, including the head of Internal Affairs, Deputy Chief Mark Perez, to bring in “fresh perspective” to that bureau. It is not yet clear what the tweaking means regarding the department’s discipline policy, but we’ll keep an eye on it.
LA Times’ Joel Rubin has the story. Here are some clips:
Perez’s departure from the Professional Standards Bureau, which investigates officers accused of misconduct, is certain to raise some eyebrows within the department. Appointed to the post in 2006 by Beck’s predecessor, William J. Bratton, Perez moved the department away from its traditional approach to disciplining officers that was centered on giving officers incrementally harsher punishments for repeat offenses.
Instead, Perez put in place a system that, as he frequently said, emphasized “strategy over penalty.”
[SNIP]In a brief interview, Beck said he is not looking for McCarthy to dismantle the current discipline system. Except in extreme instances in which he wants the officers fired, Beck said, “I still believe in using methods that reform behavior instead of punish it.”
REGISTER! VOTE!
By the way, today, May 6th, is the cut-off to register to vote in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff on May 21st. Go register! Quick! You can fill out the online application here.
Samuel Paz has been a thorn in the side of Southern California law enforcement the last few decades by representing legions of plaintiffs in lawsuits which resulted in tens of millions of dollars in settlements and judgments. His Op-Ed piece advocating an additional new layer of civilian oversight on top of the new inspector general office is well-intentioned but falls short by not taking reality into account.
Mr. Paz cited the City of LA’s Police Commission and inferred it has autonomously superintended the city’s police department and that its replication for the County’s LASD would improve its present status of corruption and decline. Perhaps Mr. Paz is unaware numerous LASD employees wrote anonymous letters to each member of the BOS repeatedly during the first several years of Baca’s tenure as Sheriff, informing them of the corrupt shenanigans openly carried out by the new sheriff, Paul Tanaka and their sycophants.
Members of the Board and the Sheriff are all elected officials. The Board’s apathy and neglect in responding to employee’s clamor for action makes them complicit. At the end of the day, each Supervisor is an elected official; a politician. The core problem with LASD is a non-leader named Leroy Baca, with day-to-day destructive help from a megalomaniac named Paul Tanaka. As long as Baca is still the Sheriff, and as long as he promotes and surrounds himself with executive employees who will carry out his shell game tactics, regardless of any new inspector general and oversight panel, the organization will continue to operate in the current outrageously corrupt manner, with much the same results we have seen since December 1998.
I think InterestedParty has outlined the core issue, specific individual responsibility. The formation of commissions, review committees, inspector generals all speak to failed leadership and frankly deflect political liability. We could only wish we could fire Baca summarily but then we have the Board of Supervisors who would select the replacement. Not a great answer! It’s pretty much a consensus that Sheriff Block overstayed his position and look at the result. Credit to Baca, he took the brass ring by defeating dead guy.
So where is a good answer? With the staff, mature press, past & present law enforcement executives and the US Justice Department who need to deliver the message of no more to Lee Baca. Lee step away, play with your international connections, collect your 100% retirement salary, redo your Doctorate study at USC so as not to embarrass the University more.
And lets not forget the Office of Independent Review. Another brain child of Baca that in theory should work as a IG office, but it does not and never has. The OIR has been VERY much aware of the misconduct and corruption at the executive ranks of LASD and what have they done about it?????? Nothing, absolutely nothing at all. OIR is a disgrace.
I got to agree! OIR (Gennaco and friends) as well as Judge Kolts need to go! This hurts as I like the judge but he didn’t do his job! They were put in place to OVERSEE LASD. But they didn’t! We don’t need another layer of inept review board that is out of touch and doesn’t know where the skeletons are buried. Get rid of Baca!!Put someone who can lead and do what is right!
C: Do you truly believe that an oversight committee would have prevented all this corruption with Tanaka and Baca?! Oh PLAASSSEEE!!!
London, I DO think if OIR did their job and exposed all of the corruption to the BOS and the PUBLIC early on, we would not be having this conversation. I can tell you factually, OIR attorneys were very much aware of the corruption, the double standards and the policy violations of Tanaka and the upper management of LASD. OIR did absolutely nothing to expose this pattern of misconduct to the BOS or the public, nothing. OIR simply went along to get along. If I were King, OIR would absolutely be the first to go. I will say it again, OIR SHOULD BE ASHAMED for what they did NOT do for the men and women of LASD and the citizens of Los Angeles County.
…Bro!!! — You are right on the money about OIR. I remember several conversations with either Michael or one of his attorneys about the the on-going corruption and his/their answer was always, in essense, “Well,that’s really out of our purview,” or they would sheepishly shrug their shoulders and tilt their head in acknowledgement. They had their contracts to maintain and offending the Sheriff might cause a contract not to get renewed. Absolutely no courage out of that group.