Category: blog

“Realignment” realities

An investigator at the scene of the quadruple murders in Northridge.

For more than a year, I’ve made no secret of my concerns over the rushed and deeply flawed ways in which Sacramento saddled California’s counties with the duty of supervising tens of thousands of inmates being freed from state prisons. In all my years in public life, I’ve never seen a matter so crucial to public safety pursued with so little regard for on-the-ground realities.

This profound transformation of California’s criminal justice system, enacted under a bill called AB 109, erupted in the news this week in the most tragic of circumstances: the accused gunman in a quadruple homicide in Northridge was one of Los Angeles County’s new AB 109 charges. Exactly how the defendant, Ka Pasasouk, slipped through the cracks—and whether systemic breakdowns may have been to blame—remains under investigation. But already the case has exposed a painfully disturbing fact of “realignment.”

Under the law, only inmates serving sentences for non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual offenses are shifted to the county’s Probation Department for post-release supervision. State parole officers oversee the rest. But the truth is that upwards of half of these so-called N3s were previously incarcerated for serious crimes. Post-release supervision under the new law is based entirely on an inmate’s current conviction, not on those for which he may have served time in the past. Pasasouk was released from prison last January on a vehicle theft conviction. But he had a long history of older offenses, including robbery and assault.

The reason for Sacramento’s legislative sleight-of-hand comes down to this: expediency. The state was under a court order to slash its prison population by 30,000. Had earlier serious and/or violent convictions been thrown into the AB 109 mix, the state would have been unable to hit that number. I can’t help but wonder whether armed state parole agents would be better equipped than the county’s Probation Department to monitor this violent population, products of California’s penal system. I believe this is worth exploring as we move forward.

Of course, any criminal who’s determined to elude supervision will do so, whether he’s being watched by the state or the county. But there’s no question that California’s governor and legislature heightened the public risk by passing AB 109 before our local authorities had a handle on some of the most basic challenges, including how many of the inmates had serious mental health problems, violent histories or even places to live. To this day, more than a year after the law’s implementation, the Probation Department is struggling to keep pace with its mushrooming responsibilities.

Some probation officers have caseloads topping 200 individuals. Many of those ex-convicts, like Pasasouk, have been deemed “high risk.” Although probation officials say the caseload ratio should be closer to 50-to-1, we’ve been unable to hire and train probation officers fast enough to keep pace with the flow from the state’s 33 prisons. The Board of Supervisors has authorized the hiring of 393 probation officers, but so far only 170 have taken to the field, according to department executives. Meanwhile, just this week, probation took delivery of 35 new cars so its officers can make more home visits and compliance checks on “post-release supervised persons,” whose numbers have swelled to more than 11,000 in L.A. County.

This situation is so infuriating that it’s easy to get stuck on what we wish would have happened, rather than on facing and embracing the reality of our predicament. It’s important to remember that the ex-inmates for whom Los Angeles County is now responsible would have been cut loose no matter who was supervising them, and most would have returned to their previous counties of residence. This was not an early release program. While we can, and will, push Sacramento for some legislative fixes, AB 109 is not going away. So I’m hoping that some good might come of all this.

A wide array of county and municipal agencies across the region, extending beyond the Probation Department, have joined together under the hot lights of public scrutiny to tackle a job they know is crucial. Representatives of the departments of public and mental health, for example, are at the table when treatment plans are created for the AB 109 arrivals. Despite gaps that still must be filled, this intensive, multi-agency effort already exceeds the level of collaboration undertaken by state parole officials.

And that, at least, should be encouraging to a public that has a right to expect its government to keep them safe.

Posted 12/13/12

It pays to grow Project 50

When we first launched Project 50, targeting the most vulnerable homeless residents on Skid Row for housing, medical care, mental health and other critically important services, we knew it was the right thing to do.

What we didn’t know for sure was whether this pilot project would pencil out in Los Angeles—as it has elsewhere—as a financially smart way to cut the incredibly high costs associated with chronic, long-term homelessness.

Now we know.

A new report assessing the cost-effectiveness of Project 50 is in, and the results offer powerful support for the economic benefits of doing the right thing by some of the people our society has shamefully left by the wayside for far too long.

The study, by the county’s Chief Executive Office, found that Project 50 in its first two years actually saved more money than it spent—with $3.045 million invested in the program resulting in savings of $3.284 million. Put another way, each permanent supportive housing unit we provided over those two years saved the taxpayers $4,774.

Even for Project 50’s most committed supporters like me, those are some mighty impressive numbers.

Yes, we spent more money on mental health care and substance abuse treatment for Project 50 participants—but we saved even larger amounts than we would have spent incarcerating them or caring for them in our clinics and emergency rooms if their conditions had gone untreated.

What’s even more intriguing is how Project 50 participants’ mental health care costs stacked up compared to those of a similar group of homeless people not in the program. Both groups had rising mental health care costs after Project 50 started—but the Project 50 group’s care cost significantly less. That’s because they received mental health outpatient care, unlike members of the comparison group, who needed far costlier hospital and emergency room crisis treatment.

Since our goal in launching this project in 2008 was to move the most hard-core homeless people off the streets, while supporting them with services to combat their substance abuse and mental health demons, these data provide vindication for the “housing-first” approach.

If we can meet people where they are—not where we wish they were, in terms of drug and alcohol abuse—we can make a profound difference, not just in their lives but in the county’s bottom line.

Since Project 50 began, we and our coalition of partner agencies have expanded the concept beyond Skid Row to reach chronically homeless people in Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice and Van Nuys. We’ve also launched Project 60, which serves chronically homeless veterans.

In all, nearly 600 lives have been touched by this remarkable program.

This new assessment of Project 50’s cost-effectiveness shows that it’s time to think even bigger. I believe we can set our sights on reaching all of the approximately 11,000 chronically homeless individuals who sleep on our county’s streets each night.

Taking a “housing first” approach with each of them is the right thing to do—and it turns out to be a great investment, too.

Read the Los Angeles Times’ report on the new study here.

Posted 6/6/12

We’ve all got a stake in the jail

The Men’s Central Jail sits on the edge of downtown, a non-descript structure surrounded by a cottage industry of bail bondsmen. Built mostly during the Kennedy Administration, it’s a deeply depressing place, filled with 4,000 or more men crammed into dank cells.

A good number of them are short-timers—misdemeanor offenders serving just a fraction of their sentences because of the overcrowded conditions. But there are hundreds upon hundreds of others—accused murderers, rapists, drug kingpins and the like—who are incarcerated in the so-called MCJ while they await trial, a process that can sometimes consume years.

Unfortunately, it’s a place where some Sheriff’s Department deputies also have crossed lines of behavior demanded of them in a civil and constitutional society.

As you may have heard or read, Los Angeles County’s sprawling jail system, which includes the more modern Twin Towers Correctional Facility, is under investigation by the FBI because of alleged brutality by deputies who run the operation.

On Friday, a new investigative body, comprised of seven distinguished individuals, will begin its inquiry into excessive force behind the bars. The Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence was unanimously created by the Board of Supervisors through a motion by Mark Ridley-Thomas and me. The commission was infused with a no-holds-barred mandate to help us understand how a small minority of deputies could poison the culture of an entire institution.

In the hopes of better understanding the challenges ahead for the commission and the Sheriff’s Department, I visited the Men’s Central Jail this week with Sheriff Lee Baca and Captain Ralph Ornelas, who oversees the facility. (See the photo gallery below.) Day in and day out, I can’t imagine a tougher, more menacing workplace, especially for rookie deputies who spend their first 3 to 5 years assigned to the jails—a practice now rightfully being reexamined.

Ornelas, the Brooklyn-born son of a New York cop, was put in charge of MCJ in March. He says he’s determined to be a force for change, inspiring a fundamental shift in the way his charges approach their jobs. “It’s about brains, not brawn,” he tells the deputies. “Let’s be more cerebral, more sophisticated, more professional.”

He says that when deputies resort to force too quickly, they’re not only unnecessarily escalating situations but undermining their own effectiveness today and in the future when they’ll be in patrol cars. “You have to develop your people skills, think through problems. It’s about verbal tactics. This way, you become a more confident deputy, who can solve problems.”

“The deputy in the jail,” he preaches, “becomes the deputy on the streets.”

I wish Ornelas and the Citizens’ Commission much success in their parallel missions because the stakes could not be higher—not just for the inmates and deputies but for all of us.

In the months ahead, thousands of new inmates will be entering our jail system thanks to a monumental shift of responsibilities in California’s criminal justice system called realignment. As of October 1, inmates convicted of certain non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual crimes that used to get them a stay in one of California’s 33 prisons, are now being sentenced to county jails.

Virtually overnight, the management of our lockup has become immensely more complicated, requiring daily decisions about which inmates should be freed earlier to clear space for the arrivals. The implications for the safety of our neighborhoods are enormous.

So while it may be easy for some to dismiss the pain inflicted on inmates by their jailers, it’s important to remember that what happens inside that difficult place can affect each and every one of us. Every facet of the facility must be operated with precision and professionalism. The jail may be located on a small, obscure street named Bauchet, but this is one problem that’s in everyone’s backyard.

Photos by Henry Salazar/Los Angeles County

Posted 11/16/11