Realignment in Alameda

Read this interesting interview with David Muhammad, the Chief Probational Officer for Alameda County. Seems like his heart is in the right place, and he’s doing some serious thinking on how to make this work. This can be a big success if agencies follow Muhammad’s example, rather than be pulled into the realignment plan kicking and screaming.

On October 1, California will move 848 prisoners from state prisons to Alameda County jails to finish their sentences. The county anticipates an additional 47 new inmates each month after that.
Also, any low-level parolee from Alameda County who violates their parole will go to county jail instead of back to the state prison where they served their sentence.
Once realignment is in full swing, the county expects 267 more people in jail on any given day than are serving time there today.


. . . 


Sergeant J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sherriff’s department said they have the space for the new prisoners in county jail. But they still need the additional state funds for new inmates. “You need to be provided with money,” he said, “to feed and clothe them.”
Eventually, Muhammad’s department expects to supervise and serve an estimated 1,900 new cases.
“I hope that it’s actually huge — that we are doing a much, much better job than the State had been doing,” said Muhammad.
The state, he added, has focused too much on incarceration instead of rehabilitation.
Muhammad wants to shift the focus towards rehabilitation by changing the county’s risk assessment system. When a person is first released to the probation department, officers there assess their likelihood to commit another crime. Probation officers then give the most attention to the people who are at the highest risk.
While this system is good in theory, Muhammad said, they are incorrectly assessing people. Under the current system, someone likely to commit 18 small thefts will score the same as someone likely to commit armed robbery – and will be supervised accordingly.
A study by The Pew Center for the States, however, concludes that low-risk people do better with less supervision.
For example, low-risk people are more likely to have a job, Muhammad said, but if they have to go to the probation office during working hours to meet with a probation officer once a week, they are more likely to lose that job.
Muhammad identified another crucial area where the Alameda County probation can improve – he wants to get the department to the point where each probation officer supervises 50 people.
“Right now,” he said, “the ratio is all over the place.”
Currently 15,000 people are on probation in Alameda County. Eleven thousand of them don’t have probation officers because of a lack of staffing and funding.
AB 109 will provide some of that funding.
“I actually see this as an opportunity where we can fix everything at once,” Muhammad said.

Did the Victim Participation Bill Increase Victim Participation?

Yesterday my students and I were talking about legislation initiatives. One of the insights of our discussion, prompted by the experiences of some of them in drafting bills, was bringing up the question whether legislation was always designed to achieve its stated goals, or to serve some other enforcement goal. Some examples we floated around were the San Francisco sit-lie ordinance, which aims not at criminalizing sitting on the sidewalk per se, but rather to provide the police with an easy enforcement tool against undesirable urban elements without having to spell out the problem. This gap between proclaimed legislative intent and actual intent to enforce is something Dan Portman and I refer to in this piece as “inequitable enforcement.”

As has often been the case since the mid-1990, our example this morning comes from the world of pro-victim legislation. The 1990s, as Jonathan Simon convincingly argues in Governing Through Crime, were the decade of the victim, who became the symbolic citizen, occupying the role previously occupied by the yeoman farmer and the small business owner. In 2008, California citizens voted for Prop 9, also known as Marsy’s Law. Ostensibly a victim rights proposal (pretty much granting the same rights victims already had before the law passed), the big changes made by the proposal included lengthening the period before a given inmate is entitled to a parole hearing. At the time, we floated around the question whether Prop 9 violated the single subject rule, and some aspects of it were challenged at the 9th Circuit.

But the real question, which we could not answer at the time, was of course whether a legislative initiative ostensibly designed to increase victim participation in the criminal process really does so. And we now have an empirical answer, from a study by Laura Richardson: No, but it sure impacted the process in other ways.

Here is what the black-letter law purported to do:

Marsy’s Law has made major changes to many aspects of parole. Section 3041.5 of the California Penal Code was the most significantly altered by the adoption of Marsy’s Law. Marsy’s Law changed the default time for the date of the next parole hearing from a single year to fifteen years. It changed the amount of time that could be set between parole hearings from 1-5 years to 3-15 years. It altered the standard for deciding when to set the next hearing, shifting the burden from the state on justifying why the inmate continued to be a threat to public safety necessitating a longer time before the next hearing, to the inmate in showing the non- existence of reasons why he or she continues to be a threat to public safety. It also gave the board less discretion in setting parole hearings only allowing parole hearings to be initially set at either 3, 7, 10 or 15 years.


Section 3043 of the California Penal Code was significantly changed by the adoption of Marsy’s Law as well; allowing for victims, victims’ families and up to two representatives to have greater input during the parole hearing. Victims’ [sic] are now entitled to have their “entire and uninterrupted statements” heard by the Parole Board. Additionally, the inmate does not have the right to cross-examine the victim at the parole hearing.


After coding and analyzing 211 randomly-selected parole hearings both before and after the implementation of Marsy’s Law, Richardson’s findings are twofold: First, the time between parole hearings has nearly doubled, and the law is a strong determining factor of parole setting. 


Controlling for the factors described in Part II, the coefficient for Marsy’s Law in the regression shows a positive increase in the amount of time set by the Parole Board until the next hearing by 2.06 years (+/-0.72) for full parole hearings . . .  No other variable showed an equal positive increase in the amount of time set between parole hearings by the Parole Board. Marsy’s Law had a more significant impact on the time set until the next parole hearing by the Parole Board than any of the factors that the board must utilize in making their parole decisions or the inmate’s activity. 

And, the analysis fails to find any increase in victim participation in the process:



Using least squares regression to test the validity of my model I was unable to find any impact of Marsy’s Law on victim participation at the parole hearing. The only variable that was significant was whether the hearing was an initial or subsequent hearing. When the hearing was a subsequent hearing victim participation decreased by 1.219 (+/1 .46). 

Wait – Decreased?

This raises an open-ended question: In light of these findings, is Marsy’s law a failure or a success?

—–
Props to our friends at the Prison Law Blog and at Crim Prof Blog for the link.

Legislative Effort Against the Death Penalty Revived!

The Sac Bee reports:

Opponents of the state’s death penalty announced a new effort Monday aimed at getting an initiative before voters next year that would abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole.


The effort uses the enormous costs of California’s death penalty as a sales point with voters, and organizers said this morning that roughly $4 billion has been spent since 1978 to execute only 13 inmates.

Usually, one would predict that such an initiative had better odds at the legislature than among the public, who has consistently supported the death penalty, and given its failure earlier this week, odds would look rather grim. But with the budget crisis what it is, the public is less likely to be held hostage by victim groups. We will be following this up closely.

SB9 Defeated in Assembly

Short by five votes, the measure to allow juveniles serving life without parole to have their sentences reviewed by a judge after fifteen years failed in the Assembly. The Huffington Post reports (complete with links):

[T]the United States is the only country that sends people under 18 to prison for life with no parole. “No other country sentences kids to die in prison,” said Yee’s chief of staff, Adam Keigwin. In California, juvenile offenders are ineligible for a death penalty sentence, but they can be sentenced to life with no parole, guaranteeing that they will die in prison. SB9 aimed to change that by offering a chance to appeal if a defendant served a minimum of 25 years and showed remorse and serious change.

The arguments against the bill were victim-centered. For various reasons we explained in an earlier post, this is political rhetoric more than realistic concern. What a disappointment, albeit not as great as the disappointment over the demise of the death penalty abolition bill. Overall, a disappointing week for Californian criminal justice.

Death Penalty Bill Will Not Go Forward

SB490, the proposition to abolish the death penalty in CA, will not move forward. The Chronicle reports:

A bill that would have let California voters decide whether to repeal the death penalty will not move forward because of a lack of support in the Legislature, the measure’s author announced Thursday.


SB490 by Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, was introduced in June following the release of a study that found the state is paying $184 million more a year to keep people on death row than it would if inmates were simply left in prison for life.

But look at the statement from Hancock:

“The votes were not there to support reforming California’s expensive and dysfunctional death penalty system,” Hancock said in a written statement Thursday. “I had hoped we would take the opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to support our schools and universities, keep police on our streets and fund essential public institutions like the courts. Study after study has demonstrated that the cost of maintaining the death penalty when so many basic needs are going unmet has become an expense we can no longer afford.”

If this is not humonetarianism, I don’t know what is.

—-

Props to David Takacs for alerting me to this.

SB9, Review of Juvenile LWOP: A Few Misperceptions Corrected

Our posts about SB9 yielded several reader comments, some of which I had to refrain from publishing because of their incendiary tone. I thought it might be worthwhile to tackle some of the misapprehensions regarding SB9. While I think SB9 is a great idea and endorse it wholeheartedly, I am not officially affiliated, politically or financially, with Senator Yee or anyone else involved. Therefore, consider this an academic’s opinion, rather than political propaganda.

This proposal sets dangerous people loose in the streets.

The proposal addresses only two hundred inmates or so, and none of them is being set loose in the street quite yet. What the bill does is allow a judge to review again the case of juveniles sentenced to LWOP after they have already served at least a fifteen-year sentence. And even then, the judge will only have the ability to modify the sentence to twenty-five to life. Overall, it’s a fairly mild proposition.

Aren’t these people dangerous?


Well, some of them might be, and some of them might not. It will be up to the judge to review their history, when petitioned to do so, and to assess whether it is risky to make them eligible for parole. There will be discretion about this. What we know about the trajectory of criminal careers tends to suggest that, for many folks who committed crime in their teens, age tends to “mellow people out” and they become less dangerous as they age.


If it’s only a few hundred people, why is this such a big deal?

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal at all. A handful of inmates will be serving a very long prison term, rather than an even longer one. But the difference to the individual, in terms of offering a ray of hope, is immense.

Doesn’t that teach juveniles that it’s okay to murder?

Not at all. Twenty-five to life is a very long time for a young person. And that’s assuming that juveniles even think about the repercussions when committing crimes, many of which are expressive crimes rather than cold, calculated ones.

We’re not really saving a lot of money by letting these people out earlier than expected, are we?

That’s impossible to answer accurately without proper data. However, it stands to reason that the older our inmate population is, the more we’ll be spending on its health care, which is already approximately one third of our correctional budget. Letting someone out when he or she is in his or her fifties, rather than letting him or her die behind bars, might spare us some of the costlier inmates and allow us to focus resources on others who need urgent care.

They committed murder and deserve never to see the light of day again.

Well, that is a legitimate opinion, but what someone “deserves” depends on your definition of just desert. Spending twenty-five to life behind bars, subject to violence, overcrowding, and prisons devoid of rehabilitative programming is very far from being a walk in the park.

What about the victims’ families?
That is very much a matter of personal feeling. Many families of murder victims feel immense amounts of rage and sadness and translate those to a wish that the perpetrator of their tragedy rot behind bars. That is understandable. But it doesn’t mean that the state has to grant these wishes to the letter. Moreover, there are plenty of families of victims who do not derive satisfaction from revenge or retribution, and would much rather the money spent on incarceration be spent on more and better homicide investigation, to prevent future tragedies. There are many people who feel this way; the media exposes you to the vocal, angry ones, and they do not necessarily represent everyone.

If the legislators think LWOP sentences should be reviewed, why not abolish LWOP for juveniles altogether?

At this point, Supreme Court case law regards LWOP for juveniles as constitutional for murder (not for other offenses.) Maybe future cases will follow the rationale of Roper v. Simmons and extend the abolition of LWOP to murder as well. But this is an opportunity to do something, now.

For a matter pertaining to so few people, this is eating up plenty of public energy and discourse. Why are we dealing with this, rather than with death penalty abolition and fighting mass incarceration?

Because this is easier to achieve, and these folks need some attention, too. But there is a bill on the CA ballot to abolish the death penalty. There’s also a bill to reform the Three Strikes Law. And it’s about time.

Tonight: San Francisco DA Candidate Debate

San Francisco District Attorney Candidates Debate – Civil Rights and Criminal Justice Reform
With candidates Sharmin Bock, David Onek, George Gascon and Vu Trinh

Doors open at 6:30pm
762 Fulton Street

Sponsored by Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, ACLU-Northern California, African American Art & Culture Complex, Asian Law Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Citizen Hope, Equal Justice Society, Equal Rights Advocates, and Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal

This event will be the first opportunity for all three of the major candidates for San Francisco District Attorney to engage in a dialogue with each other, leading civil rights advocacy organizations, and the community about critical issues in criminal justice and public safety policy.

Candidates will be asked to discuss topics such as the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on communities of color, alternatives to incarceration, immigration, police misconduct, criminal justice realignment under AB 109, and policies to promote reentry and reduce recidivism.

The leadership of the San Francisco District Attorney is essential in ensuring that the city’s criminal justice system is fair and equitable and fully respects civil rights. The San Francisco DA has also often played a critical leadership role in advocating for progressive and smart criminal justice policies statewide and nationwide.

With the recent Supreme Court case ordering a reduction of nearly 40,000 prisoners from California’s prison system and major changes at the state level re-aligning responsibilities for implementing public safety, the need for bold and innovative leadership on criminal justice policy is especially urgent.

We look forward to seeing you there. If you have questions for the candidates, please post them as a comment below.

Click here for the event flyer : http://www.lccr.com/SFDA_D​ebate_8.3.11.pdf

Debtors’ Prisons in California?

from DemandProgress.org:

Americans are in more debt than ever before, and the banks are going to new extremes to squeeze us for every last penny: If you can’t pay up, they’ll try to get you locked up.

The Wall Street Journal has been investigating the disturbing resurgence of debtors’ prisons throughout America — here’s one especially infuriating example of what the banks are up to: AIG got a $122.8 billion bailout from taxpayers — that’s $4,000 per American. Jeffrey Stearns happened to owe AIG $4,000 on a loan for his pickup truck. How’d the mega-corporation handle his debt? Did they forgive him because of the public’s recent largess? No way: They had him arrested in front of his family.

Will you urge California’s lawmakers to shut down the debtors’ prisons? Just click here to automatically email your state legislators.

Here’s more on Stearns:

After being handcuffed in front of his four children, Mr. Stearns, 29 years old, spent two nights in jail, where he said he was strip-searched and sprayed for lice. “I didn’t even know I was being sued….It’s the scariest thing that ever happened to me.”

The Wall Street Journal’s data reveals that across the country, banks are having tens of thousands of Americans arrested over their debts. What happened to Stearns could happen to almost anybody.

Some state legislators are moving to outlaw the practice. Will you urge your lawmakers to join them?

WSJ: DoJ ends safe surrender program +more

Great Wall Street Journal article this week about the economic crisis and fiscal austerity coming home to roost in federal law enforcement and sentencing/corrections policy. Full article here. My favorite part is the bullet points:

“—Increasing the amount of time deducted from prison terms for good behavior, which would immediately qualify some 4,000 federal convicts for release, and another 4,000 over the next 10 years.

—Eliminating the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Gang Intelligence Center, for a savings of $8 million in the next budget year.

—Sharing less of the proceeds from property confiscated from criminals with state and local authorities, and eliminating other funding to local police departments for some operations. The change would reduce spending by $120 million, according to the White House.”

And I found this paragraph the most intriguing: “The U.S. Marshals Service has quietly shelved the Fugitive Safe Surrender Program, which has cleared the books on thousands of low-level criminal cases in the past six years. Under the program, law enforcement officials set up temporary shop in a church or a public setting, urging fugitives to turn themselves in to resolve old warrants and often drawing hundreds in a single day.”