October 9, 2024 • 44 mins
In this inaugural episode of "The Fourscore Project," Roger Clark interviews Steve Cooley, a former district attorney of Los Angeles County with an extensive background in public safety. They discuss the topic’s many complexities including the role of effective laws and proper enforcement. The conversation explores the impact of recent legislation, such as AB 109 and Proposition 47, on crime rates and the criminal justice system. Cooley shares insights on the differences between state prisons and county jails, the challenges of overcrowded prisons, and the importance of deterrence in preventing crime. The episode highlights the public's growing perception of decreased safety and the ramifications of policy decisions on law enforcement and public trust.
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(01:00:07):
music]
My name is Roger Clark and welcome to
this episode of the Fourscore in 7
(01:00:27):
Project.(...) A production of the New
Majority Foundation, we're a public
charity that strives to educate the
American people on the important issues
of our day by exploring all angles of
these issues.(...) Ultimately we seek
resolutions that are common sense in
nature and preserve and protect
representative to democracy in a way that
respects the dignity of all Americans.
(01:00:50):
(...) Today our subject is public safety
and we're very fortunate to have with us
a person who's the best suited to address
this issue, Steve Cooley.(...) Steve
welcome. Thank you Roger. Steve if you
will bear with me for just one moment let
me just remind our audience that you have
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a tremendous background in public safety.
(...) You have been a reserve police
officer for many decades.(...) You came
from a crime fighting family, I believe
your father was in the FBI and you were
the district attorney for the County of
Los Angeles for three consecutive elected
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terms.(...) And in fact I think that put
you in pretty hallowed ground in all of
the history of Los Angeles over the last
170, 175 years. I think there's only two
others that were elected to three terms
and the last two were maybe a hundred
years ago so it's been quite a while and
also want to point out that you chose not
to run for a fourth term.(...) Hopefully
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I got that right. You got everything
right. I was a reserve officer from 1972
through 1978 so not decades but a good
seven years working LAPD, Newton Division
Patrol.(...) My father was an FBI agent.
He retired in 1955 after joining just
before World War II.(...) He loved the
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bureau and his job within that
organization.(...) I was actually with
the DA's office for four decades as you
mentioned three terms 12 years as the
elected DA which is in recent history the
longest serving DA in Los Angeles County
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having served three consecutive terms.
(...) Well you know this issue of public
safety better than any of us and let's
just kind of jump right off.(...) One
thing that I always think is important is
let's get our terms defined so when we
say public safety let's give a definition
to that. Public safety to you would be
what sir? Well public safety can be
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measured of course by certain statistics
that measure crime and various forms of
crime in our society.(...) The most
accurate statistic is or those prepared
by the FBI and murder rates are the most
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accurate of all the statistics maintained
by any law enforcement agency throughout
the United States. So that's one
benchmark but there are other ways to
measure public safety and that is lesser
crimes and the
phenomenon could be drug dealing,
it could be fentanyl deaths in
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contemporary society,(...) it could be
new forms of crime such as the current
forms of theft that are occurring in
society which are kind of new and
different.(...) So in public safety is
also a sense of the public how do they
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feel when they get on a metro link train
or they're downtown Los Angeles or
they're going shopping late at night or
they're coming home from work how do they
feel? That's one way to measure public
safety is how the public feels and so I
think you can look at public safety from
all sorts of different angles and the way
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you achieve public safety is good laws
and good people enforcing them. Those are
the two major components of the equation.
If you have good laws and lousy people
enforcing them whether it be law
enforcement officers
or the district attorney
or a city prosecutor it's not going to
work. If you have bad laws it's no matter
how good your law enforcement agencies
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are or your prosecutors are it's not
going to work and right now in some
instances we don't have particularly good
laws because of our state legislature and
their view of the world.(...) They're
sort of decimating and denigrating what
was a pretty good system that achieved
the lowest crime rates in 60 years and
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then you have in some instances very poor
people in charge of enforcing the laws.
Well I want to come back in just a minute
because that's a fascinating dichotomy
you made you need two things the good
laws and you need the right people to
enforce those laws. I do want to come
back and revisit that shortly but you
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also said the component of public safety
is also the perception that the general
public has of you know how safe they are
and a scientific survey by myself talking
to people that are my friends people I
run into and I don't think I'm an outlier
on this it seems to be an overwhelming
sense that we are not safe.(...) Is that
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something you would agree or disagree
with? You're not an outlier I think the
public at large does not feel safe and
they I'm more so now than ever calculate
where their children are going to be
their spouses their relatives and they
think through well is that going to be
safe for them.(...) There are many areas
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within Los Angeles County that
historically have been perceived as being
safe. Well they aren't as safe as they
used to be. There's a lot of home
invasion robberies a lot of burglaries
high-end burglaries and some of the
wealthier enclaves those areas they may
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have perceived themselves as being safe
they aren't safe because I think the
criminal element feels more emboldened
more confident and they are more
aggressive nowadays and then of course we
read about the crimes we see of them on
television and because of you know video
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capacity and the ever-present nature of
video cameras and people on their cell
phones and I think that adds an element
of fear for the average person because
they see it and they go that can happen
to me. We know we're sitting here in Los
Angeles and this issue of public safety
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and the increasing perception of the
public that they're no longer safe is a
national issue of course but the places
that get the most attention are the big
cities in particular New York Chicago San
Francisco and LA.(...) Is the public
safety more at risk in those particular
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cities than other parts of the United
States or is that just a misperception?
(...) Well first of all there are many
other cities where things are out of
control that I could name there's
probably several particularly where there
are district attorneys who were called
Soros elected district attorneys in those
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cities markedly and doc in a very
documented way things are less safe it
could be Milwaukee could be St. Louis
there Portland a mess Seattle's a mess
San Francisco is not even a large city
it's only a seven thousand people but
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it's sort of a mess across the board from
very aggravated theft issues open air
drug dealing open air drug use auto
burglaries it seems to be almost in a
world of its own now Los Angeles people
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look at well the city well I look at Los
Angeles as the county there's 4.2 million
people in this city and this city is very
diverse in terms of socio-economic
factors but remember there's 87 other
cities in Los Angeles County and each one
has their own let's say challenges when
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it comes to crime Lancaster Palmdale up
the Antelope Valley that's different than
down in Long Beach LA is LA County is so
diverse that you can get to look at the
problems and the challenges in certain
regions and in certain cities I was
fascinated because the district attorney
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of Los Angeles is not the district
attorney of only the city of Los Angeles
but as the district attorney of the
county which includes not only the city
of but the 80 other cities plus the
unincorporated no the way the way it
works is ten of those cities have elected
to have their own city prosecutor and
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they range from the city of Los Angeles
which is very large to medium-sized
cities such as Burbank and Torrance Long
Beach has their own city prosecutor and
then some smaller cities who have their
own city prosecutor but the other 78
cities rely upon the district attorney to
enforce their misdemeanors and to
prosecute their misdemeanors and then you
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have large areas unincorporated within
Los Angeles County misdemeanors there are
prosecuted by the district attorney and
of course felonies throughout the entire
county are the exclusive jurisdiction of
the district attorney. For the people who
are watching a couple of terms that you
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mentioned which come out of your Bible
and law enforcement Bible probably the
day you were in law school but
misdemeanors and felonies tell the
viewers what the difference is between
the two. Well historically crimes that
could merit a state prison sentence were
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deemed felonies within the California
Penal Code crimes where the sentence was
up to one year but not to exceed one year
in the county jail and where the
punishment would occur in a county jail
setting those were deemed misdemeanors.
Now since AB 109 one of the legislative
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disasters of our time has taken place as
a little bit of a hybrid there. Now only
those crimes that are serious or violent
result in actual housing in a state
prison setting those felonies. All of
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their felonies that are not sex not
violent not serious they when they are
sentenced to custody by a Superior Court
judge on a felony they their
incarceration is handled by the county at
the county level. This is a great
departure by the state legislature led by
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Jerry Brown and others to reduce the
state prison population which was an
issue and to shift the burden of
incarceration to the counties when it
comes to a great number of felonies where
judges have decided I am going to
sentence this person to a state prison
sentence. Okay fine except that state
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prison sentence by law must be served in
a county facility which really burdens
the counties by the way. And AB 109 is a
piece of legislation coming out of
Sacramento and I'm also
going to talk to you about
47 and I believe 57. Yeah that's the
triumvirate. That is the
triumvirate I believe and but 109
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so now there's a distinction between
rough distinction between violent
felonies and non-violent and I suspect
there's a lot of disagreement over what
constitutes violent. Well they're defined
violent and serious felonies are defined
by certain sections in the penal code
they are very well defined there's some
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overlap between those defined as violent
felonies and some and those described and
listed as serious felonies but they're
defined very specifically in the penal
code and then everything else is not
violent or not serious just by a process
of elimination. So if we focus on
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non-violent felonies like the time can be
served in a county jail as opposed to a
prison and I sense from your comments
that there's something lacking in a
serving time in a county jail when it
should be served in a state prison that's
the sense I'm getting.(...) Can you
explain a little bit about what the
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differences are between a state prison
versus a county jail? State prisons
historically were designed for
individuals who were committed to longer
terms in a facility an incarceration
facility.(...) County jails were designed
really as a place for pretrial detainees
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people awaiting trial and then
individuals who have been sentenced to
relatively short sentences at the county
level that essentially is the
distinction. So someone with a
non-violent felony under AB 109 could
serve 10 to 15 or more years in a county
jail as opposed to a prison.
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Theoretically that's possible I am aware
of one particular case where a judge
following the law sentenced to someone to
44 years but it wasn't for a serious or a
violent felony and that person will have
to do his 44 years or at least some
portion thereof in a county jail
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facility. County jails were not built for
long-term housing of criminals they were
built for short terms of punishment not
to exceed one year and for pretrial
detainees. There are hundreds and
hundreds of individuals in our LA County
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jail system who are awaiting trial who
are pretrial detainees because they can't
make bail or they're denied bail. They
are the murderers, they are the robbers,
they are the serial rapists, they are the
big-time drug dealers.(...) Those are the
people that are pretrial detainees
awaiting their trials and they're kept in
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these in a county jail facility which is
for shorter term. I know in an ideal
world someone goes into the system
whether it be prison or county jail and
we ideally would like for them to be
rehabilitated, go out, live productive
lives, never commit another crime, never
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come back into the system.(...) Is there
a difference in terms of this term
recidivism between those who served their
time in a county jail versus those who
served their time in a prison? I don't
know if there's really a
difference in recidivism
between those that come out of prison on
parole or those that come out of a county
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jail on parole because the parole rules
have changed so much that it's hard to
even compare the current
rate of recidivism to what it used to be
which used to be defined by do you run up
out of the law within three years of
being released from the facility? I don't
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even think those statistics
exist nowadays.(...) The key though is
the purpose of the penal system is stated
in the penal code. It is to punish and
also it is stated in California law it is
to rehabilitate. They call it the
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Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation. So it's the obligation of
the state to provide and this is for
prisons. Yeah for prison for those
individuals who are committed to prison
who are going to eventually get out to
provide some sort of programs that would
allow for them to be rehabilitated. So
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they can emerge from that period of their
life and be contributing citizens and
that's an obligation of the state that I
don't think the state's been particularly
good at historically and they only
started focusing I think on it as a
matter of law when Governor
Schwarzenegger was in office. That's when
they changed the name,
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they changed the focus
from not just punishment but to include
rehabilitation.(...) Rehabilitation is a
goal whether it's been effective or not
as compared to the county jails which is
not charged with rehabilitation. It's not
a basic mission and oftentimes a person
is in a county jail for such a relatively
short period of time that a longer term
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program for rehabilitation the
opportunity just isn't there the way it
is in a state prison setting.(...) When I
was in law school and I took my criminal
law and criminal procedure classes in my
first year penance that all law students
do(...) I remember that deterrence is
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also part of the criminal justice system.
(...) Any thoughts on whether the threat
of serving prison time or county jail
time as a deterrence is actually
effective? Oh you're totally right.
Deterrence is the other main objective of
the criminal justice system is to deter
an individual from repeating the crime by
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punishing that individual and to deter
others from committing the crime by
looking at the person who's been caught
and being punished. So deterrence has
always been a consistent goal of any
penal system. Now are people deterred? I
think they are.(...) They look at someone
in their neighborhood going away to
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prison for an armed robbery they may
think you know what I'm not going to do
something else. I'm going to commit armed
robberies to make a living. I think there
is and historically
always has been a deterrence
of individuals from committing crime if
indeed the system is capturing them in a
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timely manner after the crime and
punishing them appropriately for the
crimes they've committed and their
criminal history. So I do think that it
can be achieved and it is achieved if the
laws are enforced, if people are
arrested, if people are truly
incarcerated for their crimes and their
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criminal history.(...) Crime obviously
has been around it seems forever since
there's been human beings. My sense
though is that the rate of crime over the
past, I'm going to ask you this, a
certain period of time has suddenly begun
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to grow exponentially or certainly at a
higher rate than it once was. Is that
perception accurate?(...) It's accurate.
Back in the mid 70s early 80s crime was
at an almost all-time high here in Los
Angeles County throughout California
pretty much throughout the United States
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of America.(...) But back then states
like California responded with a high
crime rate and the historic lack of
appropriate punishment by changing the
law from the indeterminate sentence law
to a determinate sentence law and
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sentences over time increased in terms of
time.(...) State prisons were built over
time to house this new influx and we went
from one of the highest crime rates in
recent history. We were talking about
California. California and LA County
highest crime rates certainly in our
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lifetimes in the late 70s early 80s until
the early 2000s when the term of sentence
law had been around since 1977.(...)
Crime rates were at a 60 year low. They
had not been that low since the mid
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1950s. What year are you talking about
when they were so low? Between 2000 and
about 2012 and then it kind of just
started creeping back up. It crept back
up because AB 109 and then Prop 47 and
then Prop 57 all these things sort of
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came together to diminish society's
efforts to deal with the criminal element
and incarcerate them appropriately.
And now we're seeing an increase in
crime. We're going back to the high crime
era of the late 70s and early 80s and
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we've abandoned the very low crime era
that existed basically in 2000, 2012
that era. Lowest crime rate in 60 years.
(...) It was a really good period for the
law-abiding public and public safety. Let
(01:22:54):
me ask you to define another term or
terms that you just referred to. I don't
want to let that go under the bridge
without addressing it. You said
determinant and indeterminate sentences.
So what's the difference between those
two? Historically California was what
they called an isso, an indeterminate
sentence law state. Essentially someone
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would be committed to state prison. You
probably heard the term on television for
the term prescribed by law, robbery,
vibed to life, attempted murder, tend to
life. But they would go in and then based
upon their evaluation as to when they've
been quote unquote rehabilitated they
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would then be released. Oftentimes in a
relatively short number of years the five
to life sentence might be two years.
A second degree murder might be five,
six, seven years.(...) It was the
sentences in the indeterminate sentence
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law were relatively low. It's not because
people were really being rehabilitated.
It's just that the state prison had a
capacity and so they're being let out to
manage the people sentenced to the state
prison within their existing facilities.
And it was then that finally great
leaders like George Digmajian and then
subsequently Pete Wilson went to work and
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built the prisons to accommodate people
who were being sentenced under the new
law which became effective in July 1977
which was the determinant sentence law.
And initially DSL as it was called
determinant sentence law had relatively
short sentences because they had to
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reflect the average sentences for people
that were having committed under the
indeterminate sentence law. But once it
was in place, once that structure was in
place, the legislature and the people by
way of initiative increased the sentences
and the potential time and the ways you
could get more time.(...) Prior
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convictions,(...) a use of dangerous and
deadly weapons, infliction of great
bodily injury, excessive taking or
damage. All these enhancements were added
that if proven could add more time to a
person's sentence based upon the nature
of the crime or the
criminal history of the criminal.
Let me ask you about prisons.(...) When's
(01:25:24):
the last time we constructed a new prison
in the state of California? I don't think
we've constructed a new prison in
California for probably I'm going to say
20 years.(...) Maybe,(...) well I think
it was probably under Governor Wilson and
he and George Digmajian and the public at
large who had voted to build those
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prisons and fund those prisons, fund the
construction of those prisons did greatly
expand the prison capacity. But even that
capacity got to the point where there
were challenges to whether or not it was
cruel and inhuman, unconstitutional.
You're referring to the to the federal
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court decision. Yeah, the Supreme Court
decision. 2006, 2007 somewhere in that
time period. Yeah, and they said look
it's really a little too crowded there in
California.(...) So the all the crime
rate was really low. It was a product of
that era of incarceration.(...) There had
to be something to reduce the prison
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population and there were different ideas
proposed.(...) Some of them actually
pretty rational and some of them
reckless.(...) Because I took a look at
that decision a couple of days ago and I
may be off a few thousand here or there.
(...) But I believe that the prison
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population, not the jail, but the prison
population in California was up to about
179,(...) 180,000 somewhere in that
range. You're right in the butt in terms
of the, somewhere. But yet the prison
capacity was built for something around
100 to 110,000 and the federal court said
cruel, unusual. They basically measured
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the actual number of people in prison
with what they called designed bed
capacity. How many beds do you have for
the people that are in there in terms of
normal incarceration in a cell called
designed bed capacity? And the number of
people in the state prisons vastly
exceeded designed bed capacity leading to
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the Supreme Court decision.(...) And the
response could have been, okay, let's
figure out how we're going to adjust the
sentences and let certain people out who
are less risk, less violent
or the alternative build other
incarceration facilities, maybe some less
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expensive than some of the state prisons,
(...) but for the nonviolent, non-serious
incarcerated person. But then California
took a wholly different approach than
some of the more rational approaches to
reducing the prison population. Well, it
seems to me the reason I'm kind of
pursuing, you know, this line of
questioning is that the rate, if the rate
(01:28:18):
of crime is increasing, that certainly is
an important factor, but the rate of
population in California traditionally
has increased as well. So it seems that
even if your crime rate is stable with
more people every year, you're going to
have an increase in crime. And if you're
not building new prisons,(...) the net
result seems to be an overcrowding of the
(01:28:38):
prison system.(...) Okay. I've always
said that the crime rates defend upon
whether or not people that should be in
are out. And the object of the system is
determined who should be in and for how
long. And that if you do a good job of
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figuring out who the true, precipitous,
(...) violent, dangerous
repetitive criminals are and you
incarcerate them, then your crime rates
are going to go down, no matter what your
population.(...) You have to make sure
that the people who should be in are in.
And we have clear examples.(...) I like
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to say almost daily, but maybe not, maybe
that's an exaggeration. We have clear
examples of innocent people being
victimized because a person who should
have been was out. I'm talking about
police officers who are murdered.(...)
You look at the person who killed him. He
should have been in by law, but someone
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screwed up. Someone did not follow the
law. Someone did not make sure that they
got the appropriate sentence.(...) Two
officers in El Monte(...) went out to
resolve a dispute,(...) essentially a
domestic type dispute,
and they're both killed.
Murdered by someone who was supposed to
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be in.(...) Sergeant
Boyer, Whittier police officer.
He responds to a traffic accident,(...)
routine,(...) and the gang member who was
from East LA who killed his uncle a few
hours earlier and stole his car,(...)
decided he doesn't want to get arrested
for stealing the car and killing his
uncle. So he was killed's officer Boyer.
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You look at his history, he should have
been in. He was in violation of parole.
(...) He should have been in. He was out.
And that's what happens. People that
should be in are out. And then who gets
hurt? Law-abiding public. Well, in that
example,(...) so you had this gang member
that has a record, had obviously been
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sentenced for prior crimes, violated his
parole by committing further crimes, but
yet he's out. So then he commits murders
when he should be in. Whose fault is
that? Is that the judicial system? It is
the parole authorities who have not
detected someone. Sometimes it's the law.
(01:31:16):
In the case of Sergeant Boyer, it was AB
109 that had wiped out normal parole and
substituted some kind of a weird, they
call it flash incarceration by the
probation department. And that failed. So
in that case, it was a law that failed.
And other cases, it's the district
(01:31:38):
attorney who was not achieving an
appropriate sentence according to the
law. The two Almoni police officers were
killed. That person should have been in
state prison. It was easy. It was not
complicated. He was charged with ex-con
with a gun. He had prior strikes. He
mandatorily should
(01:31:58):
have been in prison. But
the district attorney
in a policy, oh, we don't file strikes.
(...) Therefore, you lose the power of
putting him in prison. He gets a
sweetheart deal. He's out in 20 days and
he kills two cops.(...) It's an easy
thing to figure out when you look at why
the person is where he is. Well, he was
(01:32:20):
out and he should have been in.
AB 109 though, I think you just defined
that as falling into the category of a
not good law, a bad law. That's one of
several. One of them. And because of the
defects in that particular law,(...) this
gang banker was out and was able to have
(01:32:41):
the opportunity to kill innocent folks.
What was it again about AB 109 that
allowed him to fall through the cracks
and still commit these crimes? AB 109
greatly reduced parole as a way to deal
with the criminal element who had been in
(01:33:03):
prison and were out. It basically reduced
the ranks of parole officers
substantially and placed many of those
burdens on the local probation
departments who were really not equipped
to deal with that sort of criminal. And
then they substituted a system of when
you violate parole, you go back to prison
(01:33:24):
for up to a year, they substitute with a
system called flash incarceration,(...)
which is if you violate the terms of your
parole, oh, we're going to call you in,
have you do 10 days and see if that gets
your attention. Well, that's not very
much time to be in. And secondly, for a
hardened criminal, it's not much of a
(01:33:45):
deterrence. And in that particular
instance,(...) he,(...) under the old
system, he would have been in violation
of parole. He would have been back to
stay prison. But around that same time,
the new system had come in,(...) AB 109,
and he was out when he should have been
in.(...) Well, coming
(01:34:06):
back to the trilogy,
and I do want to ask you specifically
about AB or 90 bit, but 47
and 57, in addition to AB 109.
To me, it seems that these laws all seem
to be some reaction to dealing with the
(01:34:27):
federal court decision that ordered a
reduction of population of the prison. We
can come back and talk about that,
whether that's an accurate observation or
not. But let me come back to a more basic
question is, well, what's your
explanation of how we got in a situation
where we had a significant overpopulation
of our prison capacity? How did we get
(01:34:47):
into that spot to lead to this federal
court decision? Okay, the question is,
how do we get in a position where we had
an overpopulation leading to a Supreme
Court decision, sort of saying reduce
your population? It's a very good
question. One, we did not build more
prisons when we could have. That would
have been an option.
(...) And two,(...) the
(01:35:08):
ways that the state government chose to
deal with the overpopulation was through
AB 109, and then subsequently Prop 57. 47
is sort of a different animal, but was to
basically reduce the terms, the amount of
(01:35:29):
time someone was in and where they were
in. That's how they dealt with it. And
right now, the state prison population is
so low, they're closing prisons, which
they could use to house a few of these
guys. But so that's really
was a problem they didn't
they didn't use other ways that were
(01:35:51):
logical that they could have
reduced the prison population
to accommodate the US Supreme Court, sort
of saying you're overcrowded to the
extent it violates the Eighth Amendment.
They didn't go that way.
They went AB 109,(...) which
just sort of said, hey, we the state
(01:36:14):
historically, we've housed people in
state prison, when they're sentenced to
state prison. Oh, but we're going to
change that. Now if a judge sentences
someone to stay prison, and it's a non
violent non serious non sex offense,(...)
you the counties are going to have to
take care of that state prison commitment
at your local level. Well, that certainly
(01:36:34):
reduced the number of people in state
prison, and has had a dramatic effect
over time to reduce the number of people
in state prison. So Superior Court judge
says, I'm sending you to stay prison for
eight years. Oh, there's non violent, non
serious, non sex.(...) Guess what? You
get to go to the local county jail for
your sentence. That's how the state got
(01:36:57):
away from that historic responsibility.
(...) There may be people watching that
are asking themselves if the prison
population in California is dropping to
such a low level, we're actually closing
prisons.(...) But yet since 2012, we've
had an explosion of crime,(...) which
(01:37:19):
just those two statements in their own
seem to be in tension with one another.
(...) But I think you just gave an
explanation. I want to make sure that we
understand each other on that point.(...)
Why are we closing prisons and reducing
prison population, but yet we have an
explosive growth in crime? Is that due to
the 109 and other laws that California
(01:37:41):
has passed? Well, it's the two major
legal laws are AB 109,(...) shifting the
housing responsibility for people
sentenced to state prison, for non
violent, non serious, non sex offenses,
having them housed in a county jail(...)
setting that reduced the
(01:38:02):
population significantly.
Prop 57 also made individuals eligible
for parole much earlier than they would
have been under the historic determinant
of sentence law. So they only have to
serve actually a relatively small amount
of any term, no matter how long before
(01:38:25):
they're eligible for parole. So many
people get paroled a lot earlier. Now,
throw Prop 47 into it.(...) That
eliminated that sort of changed the whole
configuration of the theft laws, but it
also reduced all hard drugs from being
felonies to being misdemeanors. Darrell
(01:38:48):
Bock Possession. John Deeben Not sales,
not possession for sale, but possession
of hard drugs reduced to misdemeanors. So
now you have either minimal or no
enforcement of the laws when it comes to
possession, simple possession of drugs,
which when you control the drug abusing
(01:39:11):
criminal element,(...) by enforcing drug
laws, you're also impacting burglaries,
theft offenses, robberies, and other
crimes. But that was
all taken away by Prop 47,
I'm sure you've seen the
incredible explosion in
(01:39:38):
essentially theft, retail theft,(...)
including mobs going in and stealing
items,(...) individuals(...) crashing
into stores with their stolen cars and
stealing items,(...) people going in and
clearing out the shelves of high-end
beauty products and walking out.(...)
(01:39:59):
That's something new and novel,(...) and
it's frightening. If you're a customer at
Nordstrom's,(...) you don't want to see
30 or 40 thugs coming in and taking
things off the shelves. Darrell Bock And
not being stopped. Not being stopped on
the way out and or not being prosecuted
effectively by the local prosecutor.
(01:40:21):
Darrell Bock 47.(...) Changed drug
possession from felony to misdemeanor.
(...) Is that also where this smash and
grab originated if you steal(...) stuff
that's $950 or less? It's now only a
misdemeanor.(...) Robert Bock Prop 47
(01:40:43):
eliminated as a felony the crime of petty
theft with a prior. It screwed up the
definition of auto burglary,(...) which
has certainly contributed to San
Francisco's epidemic of auto burglary.
(...) It reduced the amount that had to be
stolen in order for it to be a felony
(01:41:04):
from $950. It increased the amount from
$400 to $950, and the criminals are well
aware of the amounts they can take.(...)
And I think that the general sense of
they're not really going to prosecute me
anyway, so the criminals were emboldened.
(01:41:27):
And you can see it on videos all the
time. One or two individuals walk in with
their little shopping bag full of stuff,
walk out(...) undeterred, very rarely
confronted by security,(...) certainly
very rarely confronted by law
enforcement. Darrell Bock Well, it seems
like to me it just has a pernicious
effect on people who want to be law
(01:41:47):
abiding citizens because say for example
if I,(...) my children are adults now,
but if I had a young child with me and I
was in a store and somebody grabbed
stuff, stole it and walked out and
they're not being stopped,(...) and my
child looked at me and said, "Dad,(...)
why isn't he being stopped and arrested?"
(01:42:07):
John Deebenco Something tells me your
child would be a moral person who would
be offended by the crime that they just
observed having her. Darrell Bock I think
they would, but that child today may look
to mom or dad and say, "Well, if that
person's not being stopped,(...) why
shouldn't I do it?" Who cares about the
(01:42:28):
law? John Deebenco Yeah, it certainly
undermines the goal of deterrence of the
criminal justice system. Darrell Bock And
in respect for the law. John Deebenco And
people aren't arrested, and in respect
for the law, for starters, which leads to
them, certain individuals being
emboldened to commit those crimes. And
look at San Francisco. It's not just
people being emboldened and lack of
(01:42:50):
deterrence. Up there you have retail
establishments shutting their doors.(...)
Nordstrom's, sort of a high-end retail
outfit, they're shut down in San
Francisco. They used to be in Union
Square, one of the premier places for
people to go shopping. They've shut down.
I think Bloomingdale's shut down. The
(01:43:11):
drug stores, they're shutting down right
and left in San Francisco.(...) They're
in a,(...) because they can't afford it.
(...) It's such a loss, it's not worth
being in business when you're losing
money all the time and putting your
employees at risk.(...) So they close
(01:43:31):
their doors. Darrell Bock It's almost an
indirect tax on law-abiding citizens,
isn't it? Darrell Bock So they're paying
the penalty of not having access to these
stores. John Deebenco Yeah, and then the
sales taxes that would have been
generated by those stores, those are no
longer in the public coffers to deal with
some of the problems that are out there,
especially in San Francisco, with all of
their problems, which are myriad.
music]
My name is Roger Clark and welcome to
this episode of the Fourscore in 7
(01:00:27):
Project.(...) A production of the New
Majority Foundation, we're a public
charity that strives to educate the
American people on the important issues
of our day by exploring all angles of
these issues.(...) Ultimately we seek
resolutions that are common sense in
nature and preserve and protect
representative to democracy in a way that
respects the dignity of all Americans.
(01:00:50):
(...) Today our subject is public safety
and we're very fortunate to have with us
a person who's the best suited to address
this issue, Steve Cooley.(...) Steve
welcome. Thank you Roger. Steve if you
will bear with me for just one moment let
me just remind our audience that you have
(01:01:12):
a tremendous background in public safety.
(...) You have been a reserve police
officer for many decades.(...) You came
from a crime fighting family, I believe
your father was in the FBI and you were
the district attorney for the County of
Los Angeles for three consecutive elected
(01:01:34):
terms.(...) And in fact I think that put
you in pretty hallowed ground in all of
the history of Los Angeles over the last
170, 175 years. I think there's only two
others that were elected to three terms
and the last two were maybe a hundred
years ago so it's been quite a while and
also want to point out that you chose not
to run for a fourth term.(...) Hopefully
(01:01:57):
I got that right. You got everything
right. I was a reserve officer from 1972
through 1978 so not decades but a good
seven years working LAPD, Newton Division
Patrol.(...) My father was an FBI agent.
He retired in 1955 after joining just
before World War II.(...) He loved the
(01:02:18):
bureau and his job within that
organization.(...) I was actually with
the DA's office for four decades as you
mentioned three terms 12 years as the
elected DA which is in recent history the
longest serving DA in Los Angeles County
(01:02:39):
having served three consecutive terms.
(...) Well you know this issue of public
safety better than any of us and let's
just kind of jump right off.(...) One
thing that I always think is important is
let's get our terms defined so when we
say public safety let's give a definition
to that. Public safety to you would be
what sir? Well public safety can be
(01:02:59):
measured of course by certain statistics
that measure crime and various forms of
crime in our society.(...) The most
accurate statistic is or those prepared
by the FBI and murder rates are the most
(01:03:20):
accurate of all the statistics maintained
by any law enforcement agency throughout
the United States. So that's one
benchmark but there are other ways to
measure public safety and that is lesser
crimes and the
phenomenon could be drug dealing,
it could be fentanyl deaths in
(01:03:40):
contemporary society,(...) it could be
new forms of crime such as the current
forms of theft that are occurring in
society which are kind of new and
different.(...) So in public safety is
also a sense of the public how do they
(01:04:00):
feel when they get on a metro link train
or they're downtown Los Angeles or
they're going shopping late at night or
they're coming home from work how do they
feel? That's one way to measure public
safety is how the public feels and so I
think you can look at public safety from
all sorts of different angles and the way
(01:04:23):
you achieve public safety is good laws
and good people enforcing them. Those are
the two major components of the equation.
If you have good laws and lousy people
enforcing them whether it be law
enforcement officers
or the district attorney
or a city prosecutor it's not going to
work. If you have bad laws it's no matter
how good your law enforcement agencies
(01:04:44):
are or your prosecutors are it's not
going to work and right now in some
instances we don't have particularly good
laws because of our state legislature and
their view of the world.(...) They're
sort of decimating and denigrating what
was a pretty good system that achieved
the lowest crime rates in 60 years and
(01:05:07):
then you have in some instances very poor
people in charge of enforcing the laws.
Well I want to come back in just a minute
because that's a fascinating dichotomy
you made you need two things the good
laws and you need the right people to
enforce those laws. I do want to come
back and revisit that shortly but you
(01:05:30):
also said the component of public safety
is also the perception that the general
public has of you know how safe they are
and a scientific survey by myself talking
to people that are my friends people I
run into and I don't think I'm an outlier
on this it seems to be an overwhelming
sense that we are not safe.(...) Is that
(01:05:52):
something you would agree or disagree
with? You're not an outlier I think the
public at large does not feel safe and
they I'm more so now than ever calculate
where their children are going to be
their spouses their relatives and they
think through well is that going to be
safe for them.(...) There are many areas
(01:06:14):
within Los Angeles County that
historically have been perceived as being
safe. Well they aren't as safe as they
used to be. There's a lot of home
invasion robberies a lot of burglaries
high-end burglaries and some of the
wealthier enclaves those areas they may
(01:06:35):
have perceived themselves as being safe
they aren't safe because I think the
criminal element feels more emboldened
more confident and they are more
aggressive nowadays and then of course we
read about the crimes we see of them on
television and because of you know video
(01:06:58):
capacity and the ever-present nature of
video cameras and people on their cell
phones and I think that adds an element
of fear for the average person because
they see it and they go that can happen
to me. We know we're sitting here in Los
Angeles and this issue of public safety
(01:07:19):
and the increasing perception of the
public that they're no longer safe is a
national issue of course but the places
that get the most attention are the big
cities in particular New York Chicago San
Francisco and LA.(...) Is the public
safety more at risk in those particular
(01:07:40):
cities than other parts of the United
States or is that just a misperception?
(...) Well first of all there are many
other cities where things are out of
control that I could name there's
probably several particularly where there
are district attorneys who were called
Soros elected district attorneys in those
(01:08:01):
cities markedly and doc in a very
documented way things are less safe it
could be Milwaukee could be St. Louis
there Portland a mess Seattle's a mess
San Francisco is not even a large city
it's only a seven thousand people but
(01:08:22):
it's sort of a mess across the board from
very aggravated theft issues open air
drug dealing open air drug use auto
burglaries it seems to be almost in a
world of its own now Los Angeles people
(01:08:43):
look at well the city well I look at Los
Angeles as the county there's 4.2 million
people in this city and this city is very
diverse in terms of socio-economic
factors but remember there's 87 other
cities in Los Angeles County and each one
has their own let's say challenges when
(01:09:04):
it comes to crime Lancaster Palmdale up
the Antelope Valley that's different than
down in Long Beach LA is LA County is so
diverse that you can get to look at the
problems and the challenges in certain
regions and in certain cities I was
fascinated because the district attorney
(01:09:26):
of Los Angeles is not the district
attorney of only the city of Los Angeles
but as the district attorney of the
county which includes not only the city
of but the 80 other cities plus the
unincorporated no the way the way it
works is ten of those cities have elected
to have their own city prosecutor and
(01:09:48):
they range from the city of Los Angeles
which is very large to medium-sized
cities such as Burbank and Torrance Long
Beach has their own city prosecutor and
then some smaller cities who have their
own city prosecutor but the other 78
cities rely upon the district attorney to
enforce their misdemeanors and to
prosecute their misdemeanors and then you
(01:10:10):
have large areas unincorporated within
Los Angeles County misdemeanors there are
prosecuted by the district attorney and
of course felonies throughout the entire
county are the exclusive jurisdiction of
the district attorney. For the people who
are watching a couple of terms that you
(01:10:30):
mentioned which come out of your Bible
and law enforcement Bible probably the
day you were in law school but
misdemeanors and felonies tell the
viewers what the difference is between
the two. Well historically crimes that
could merit a state prison sentence were
(01:10:51):
deemed felonies within the California
Penal Code crimes where the sentence was
up to one year but not to exceed one year
in the county jail and where the
punishment would occur in a county jail
setting those were deemed misdemeanors.
Now since AB 109 one of the legislative
(01:11:13):
disasters of our time has taken place as
a little bit of a hybrid there. Now only
those crimes that are serious or violent
result in actual housing in a state
prison setting those felonies. All of
(01:11:35):
their felonies that are not sex not
violent not serious they when they are
sentenced to custody by a Superior Court
judge on a felony they their
incarceration is handled by the county at
the county level. This is a great
departure by the state legislature led by
(01:12:00):
Jerry Brown and others to reduce the
state prison population which was an
issue and to shift the burden of
incarceration to the counties when it
comes to a great number of felonies where
judges have decided I am going to
sentence this person to a state prison
sentence. Okay fine except that state
(01:12:22):
prison sentence by law must be served in
a county facility which really burdens
the counties by the way. And AB 109 is a
piece of legislation coming out of
Sacramento and I'm also
going to talk to you about
47 and I believe 57. Yeah that's the
triumvirate. That is the
triumvirate I believe and but 109
(01:12:43):
so now there's a distinction between
rough distinction between violent
felonies and non-violent and I suspect
there's a lot of disagreement over what
constitutes violent. Well they're defined
violent and serious felonies are defined
by certain sections in the penal code
they are very well defined there's some
(01:13:04):
overlap between those defined as violent
felonies and some and those described and
listed as serious felonies but they're
defined very specifically in the penal
code and then everything else is not
violent or not serious just by a process
of elimination. So if we focus on
(01:13:26):
non-violent felonies like the time can be
served in a county jail as opposed to a
prison and I sense from your comments
that there's something lacking in a
serving time in a county jail when it
should be served in a state prison that's
the sense I'm getting.(...) Can you
explain a little bit about what the
(01:13:48):
differences are between a state prison
versus a county jail? State prisons
historically were designed for
individuals who were committed to longer
terms in a facility an incarceration
facility.(...) County jails were designed
really as a place for pretrial detainees
(01:14:11):
people awaiting trial and then
individuals who have been sentenced to
relatively short sentences at the county
level that essentially is the
distinction. So someone with a
non-violent felony under AB 109 could
serve 10 to 15 or more years in a county
jail as opposed to a prison.
(01:14:33):
Theoretically that's possible I am aware
of one particular case where a judge
following the law sentenced to someone to
44 years but it wasn't for a serious or a
violent felony and that person will have
to do his 44 years or at least some
portion thereof in a county jail
(01:14:53):
facility. County jails were not built for
long-term housing of criminals they were
built for short terms of punishment not
to exceed one year and for pretrial
detainees. There are hundreds and
hundreds of individuals in our LA County
(01:15:14):
jail system who are awaiting trial who
are pretrial detainees because they can't
make bail or they're denied bail. They
are the murderers, they are the robbers,
they are the serial rapists, they are the
big-time drug dealers.(...) Those are the
people that are pretrial detainees
awaiting their trials and they're kept in
(01:15:35):
these in a county jail facility which is
for shorter term. I know in an ideal
world someone goes into the system
whether it be prison or county jail and
we ideally would like for them to be
rehabilitated, go out, live productive
lives, never commit another crime, never
(01:15:57):
come back into the system.(...) Is there
a difference in terms of this term
recidivism between those who served their
time in a county jail versus those who
served their time in a prison? I don't
know if there's really a
difference in recidivism
between those that come out of prison on
parole or those that come out of a county
(01:16:21):
jail on parole because the parole rules
have changed so much that it's hard to
even compare the current
rate of recidivism to what it used to be
which used to be defined by do you run up
out of the law within three years of
being released from the facility? I don't
(01:16:42):
even think those statistics
exist nowadays.(...) The key though is
the purpose of the penal system is stated
in the penal code. It is to punish and
also it is stated in California law it is
to rehabilitate. They call it the
(01:17:04):
Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation. So it's the obligation of
the state to provide and this is for
prisons. Yeah for prison for those
individuals who are committed to prison
who are going to eventually get out to
provide some sort of programs that would
allow for them to be rehabilitated. So
(01:17:26):
they can emerge from that period of their
life and be contributing citizens and
that's an obligation of the state that I
don't think the state's been particularly
good at historically and they only
started focusing I think on it as a
matter of law when Governor
Schwarzenegger was in office. That's when
they changed the name,
(01:17:46):
they changed the focus
from not just punishment but to include
rehabilitation.(...) Rehabilitation is a
goal whether it's been effective or not
as compared to the county jails which is
not charged with rehabilitation. It's not
a basic mission and oftentimes a person
is in a county jail for such a relatively
short period of time that a longer term
(01:18:10):
program for rehabilitation the
opportunity just isn't there the way it
is in a state prison setting.(...) When I
was in law school and I took my criminal
law and criminal procedure classes in my
first year penance that all law students
do(...) I remember that deterrence is
(01:18:30):
also part of the criminal justice system.
(...) Any thoughts on whether the threat
of serving prison time or county jail
time as a deterrence is actually
effective? Oh you're totally right.
Deterrence is the other main objective of
the criminal justice system is to deter
an individual from repeating the crime by
(01:18:53):
punishing that individual and to deter
others from committing the crime by
looking at the person who's been caught
and being punished. So deterrence has
always been a consistent goal of any
penal system. Now are people deterred? I
think they are.(...) They look at someone
in their neighborhood going away to
(01:19:15):
prison for an armed robbery they may
think you know what I'm not going to do
something else. I'm going to commit armed
robberies to make a living. I think there
is and historically
always has been a deterrence
of individuals from committing crime if
indeed the system is capturing them in a
(01:19:40):
timely manner after the crime and
punishing them appropriately for the
crimes they've committed and their
criminal history. So I do think that it
can be achieved and it is achieved if the
laws are enforced, if people are
arrested, if people are truly
incarcerated for their crimes and their
(01:20:02):
criminal history.(...) Crime obviously
has been around it seems forever since
there's been human beings. My sense
though is that the rate of crime over the
past, I'm going to ask you this, a
certain period of time has suddenly begun
(01:20:22):
to grow exponentially or certainly at a
higher rate than it once was. Is that
perception accurate?(...) It's accurate.
Back in the mid 70s early 80s crime was
at an almost all-time high here in Los
Angeles County throughout California
pretty much throughout the United States
(01:20:43):
of America.(...) But back then states
like California responded with a high
crime rate and the historic lack of
appropriate punishment by changing the
law from the indeterminate sentence law
to a determinate sentence law and
(01:21:06):
sentences over time increased in terms of
time.(...) State prisons were built over
time to house this new influx and we went
from one of the highest crime rates in
recent history. We were talking about
California. California and LA County
highest crime rates certainly in our
(01:21:29):
lifetimes in the late 70s early 80s until
the early 2000s when the term of sentence
law had been around since 1977.(...)
Crime rates were at a 60 year low. They
had not been that low since the mid
(01:21:51):
1950s. What year are you talking about
when they were so low? Between 2000 and
about 2012 and then it kind of just
started creeping back up. It crept back
up because AB 109 and then Prop 47 and
then Prop 57 all these things sort of
(01:22:12):
came together to diminish society's
efforts to deal with the criminal element
and incarcerate them appropriately.
And now we're seeing an increase in
crime. We're going back to the high crime
era of the late 70s and early 80s and
(01:22:33):
we've abandoned the very low crime era
that existed basically in 2000, 2012
that era. Lowest crime rate in 60 years.
(...) It was a really good period for the
law-abiding public and public safety. Let
(01:22:54):
me ask you to define another term or
terms that you just referred to. I don't
want to let that go under the bridge
without addressing it. You said
determinant and indeterminate sentences.
So what's the difference between those
two? Historically California was what
they called an isso, an indeterminate
sentence law state. Essentially someone
(01:23:15):
would be committed to state prison. You
probably heard the term on television for
the term prescribed by law, robbery,
vibed to life, attempted murder, tend to
life. But they would go in and then based
upon their evaluation as to when they've
been quote unquote rehabilitated they
(01:23:36):
would then be released. Oftentimes in a
relatively short number of years the five
to life sentence might be two years.
A second degree murder might be five,
six, seven years.(...) It was the
sentences in the indeterminate sentence
(01:23:56):
law were relatively low. It's not because
people were really being rehabilitated.
It's just that the state prison had a
capacity and so they're being let out to
manage the people sentenced to the state
prison within their existing facilities.
And it was then that finally great
leaders like George Digmajian and then
subsequently Pete Wilson went to work and
(01:24:19):
built the prisons to accommodate people
who were being sentenced under the new
law which became effective in July 1977
which was the determinant sentence law.
And initially DSL as it was called
determinant sentence law had relatively
short sentences because they had to
(01:24:39):
reflect the average sentences for people
that were having committed under the
indeterminate sentence law. But once it
was in place, once that structure was in
place, the legislature and the people by
way of initiative increased the sentences
and the potential time and the ways you
could get more time.(...) Prior
(01:25:01):
convictions,(...) a use of dangerous and
deadly weapons, infliction of great
bodily injury, excessive taking or
damage. All these enhancements were added
that if proven could add more time to a
person's sentence based upon the nature
of the crime or the
criminal history of the criminal.
Let me ask you about prisons.(...) When's
(01:25:24):
the last time we constructed a new prison
in the state of California? I don't think
we've constructed a new prison in
California for probably I'm going to say
20 years.(...) Maybe,(...) well I think
it was probably under Governor Wilson and
he and George Digmajian and the public at
large who had voted to build those
(01:25:46):
prisons and fund those prisons, fund the
construction of those prisons did greatly
expand the prison capacity. But even that
capacity got to the point where there
were challenges to whether or not it was
cruel and inhuman, unconstitutional.
You're referring to the to the federal
(01:26:07):
court decision. Yeah, the Supreme Court
decision. 2006, 2007 somewhere in that
time period. Yeah, and they said look
it's really a little too crowded there in
California.(...) So the all the crime
rate was really low. It was a product of
that era of incarceration.(...) There had
to be something to reduce the prison
(01:26:28):
population and there were different ideas
proposed.(...) Some of them actually
pretty rational and some of them
reckless.(...) Because I took a look at
that decision a couple of days ago and I
may be off a few thousand here or there.
(...) But I believe that the prison
(01:26:50):
population, not the jail, but the prison
population in California was up to about
179,(...) 180,000 somewhere in that
range. You're right in the butt in terms
of the, somewhere. But yet the prison
capacity was built for something around
100 to 110,000 and the federal court said
cruel, unusual. They basically measured
(01:27:13):
the actual number of people in prison
with what they called designed bed
capacity. How many beds do you have for
the people that are in there in terms of
normal incarceration in a cell called
designed bed capacity? And the number of
people in the state prisons vastly
exceeded designed bed capacity leading to
(01:27:35):
the Supreme Court decision.(...) And the
response could have been, okay, let's
figure out how we're going to adjust the
sentences and let certain people out who
are less risk, less violent
or the alternative build other
incarceration facilities, maybe some less
(01:27:56):
expensive than some of the state prisons,
(...) but for the nonviolent, non-serious
incarcerated person. But then California
took a wholly different approach than
some of the more rational approaches to
reducing the prison population. Well, it
seems to me the reason I'm kind of
pursuing, you know, this line of
questioning is that the rate, if the rate
(01:28:18):
of crime is increasing, that certainly is
an important factor, but the rate of
population in California traditionally
has increased as well. So it seems that
even if your crime rate is stable with
more people every year, you're going to
have an increase in crime. And if you're
not building new prisons,(...) the net
result seems to be an overcrowding of the
(01:28:38):
prison system.(...) Okay. I've always
said that the crime rates defend upon
whether or not people that should be in
are out. And the object of the system is
determined who should be in and for how
long. And that if you do a good job of
(01:29:00):
figuring out who the true, precipitous,
(...) violent, dangerous
repetitive criminals are and you
incarcerate them, then your crime rates
are going to go down, no matter what your
population.(...) You have to make sure
that the people who should be in are in.
And we have clear examples.(...) I like
(01:29:24):
to say almost daily, but maybe not, maybe
that's an exaggeration. We have clear
examples of innocent people being
victimized because a person who should
have been was out. I'm talking about
police officers who are murdered.(...)
You look at the person who killed him. He
should have been in by law, but someone
(01:29:46):
screwed up. Someone did not follow the
law. Someone did not make sure that they
got the appropriate sentence.(...) Two
officers in El Monte(...) went out to
resolve a dispute,(...) essentially a
domestic type dispute,
and they're both killed.
Murdered by someone who was supposed to
(01:30:08):
be in.(...) Sergeant
Boyer, Whittier police officer.
He responds to a traffic accident,(...)
routine,(...) and the gang member who was
from East LA who killed his uncle a few
hours earlier and stole his car,(...)
decided he doesn't want to get arrested
for stealing the car and killing his
uncle. So he was killed's officer Boyer.
(01:30:30):
You look at his history, he should have
been in. He was in violation of parole.
(...) He should have been in. He was out.
And that's what happens. People that
should be in are out. And then who gets
hurt? Law-abiding public. Well, in that
example,(...) so you had this gang member
that has a record, had obviously been
(01:30:53):
sentenced for prior crimes, violated his
parole by committing further crimes, but
yet he's out. So then he commits murders
when he should be in. Whose fault is
that? Is that the judicial system? It is
the parole authorities who have not
detected someone. Sometimes it's the law.
(01:31:16):
In the case of Sergeant Boyer, it was AB
109 that had wiped out normal parole and
substituted some kind of a weird, they
call it flash incarceration by the
probation department. And that failed. So
in that case, it was a law that failed.
And other cases, it's the district
(01:31:38):
attorney who was not achieving an
appropriate sentence according to the
law. The two Almoni police officers were
killed. That person should have been in
state prison. It was easy. It was not
complicated. He was charged with ex-con
with a gun. He had prior strikes. He
mandatorily should
(01:31:58):
have been in prison. But
the district attorney
in a policy, oh, we don't file strikes.
(...) Therefore, you lose the power of
putting him in prison. He gets a
sweetheart deal. He's out in 20 days and
he kills two cops.(...) It's an easy
thing to figure out when you look at why
the person is where he is. Well, he was
(01:32:20):
out and he should have been in.
AB 109 though, I think you just defined
that as falling into the category of a
not good law, a bad law. That's one of
several. One of them. And because of the
defects in that particular law,(...) this
gang banker was out and was able to have
(01:32:41):
the opportunity to kill innocent folks.
What was it again about AB 109 that
allowed him to fall through the cracks
and still commit these crimes? AB 109
greatly reduced parole as a way to deal
with the criminal element who had been in
(01:33:03):
prison and were out. It basically reduced
the ranks of parole officers
substantially and placed many of those
burdens on the local probation
departments who were really not equipped
to deal with that sort of criminal. And
then they substituted a system of when
you violate parole, you go back to prison
(01:33:24):
for up to a year, they substitute with a
system called flash incarceration,(...)
which is if you violate the terms of your
parole, oh, we're going to call you in,
have you do 10 days and see if that gets
your attention. Well, that's not very
much time to be in. And secondly, for a
hardened criminal, it's not much of a
(01:33:45):
deterrence. And in that particular
instance,(...) he,(...) under the old
system, he would have been in violation
of parole. He would have been back to
stay prison. But around that same time,
the new system had come in,(...) AB 109,
and he was out when he should have been
in.(...) Well, coming
(01:34:06):
back to the trilogy,
and I do want to ask you specifically
about AB or 90 bit, but 47
and 57, in addition to AB 109.
To me, it seems that these laws all seem
to be some reaction to dealing with the
(01:34:27):
federal court decision that ordered a
reduction of population of the prison. We
can come back and talk about that,
whether that's an accurate observation or
not. But let me come back to a more basic
question is, well, what's your
explanation of how we got in a situation
where we had a significant overpopulation
of our prison capacity? How did we get
(01:34:47):
into that spot to lead to this federal
court decision? Okay, the question is,
how do we get in a position where we had
an overpopulation leading to a Supreme
Court decision, sort of saying reduce
your population? It's a very good
question. One, we did not build more
prisons when we could have. That would
have been an option.
(...) And two,(...) the
(01:35:08):
ways that the state government chose to
deal with the overpopulation was through
AB 109, and then subsequently Prop 57. 47
is sort of a different animal, but was to
basically reduce the terms, the amount of
(01:35:29):
time someone was in and where they were
in. That's how they dealt with it. And
right now, the state prison population is
so low, they're closing prisons, which
they could use to house a few of these
guys. But so that's really
was a problem they didn't
they didn't use other ways that were
(01:35:51):
logical that they could have
reduced the prison population
to accommodate the US Supreme Court, sort
of saying you're overcrowded to the
extent it violates the Eighth Amendment.
They didn't go that way.
They went AB 109,(...) which
just sort of said, hey, we the state
(01:36:14):
historically, we've housed people in
state prison, when they're sentenced to
state prison. Oh, but we're going to
change that. Now if a judge sentences
someone to stay prison, and it's a non
violent non serious non sex offense,(...)
you the counties are going to have to
take care of that state prison commitment
at your local level. Well, that certainly
(01:36:34):
reduced the number of people in state
prison, and has had a dramatic effect
over time to reduce the number of people
in state prison. So Superior Court judge
says, I'm sending you to stay prison for
eight years. Oh, there's non violent, non
serious, non sex.(...) Guess what? You
get to go to the local county jail for
your sentence. That's how the state got
(01:36:57):
away from that historic responsibility.
(...) There may be people watching that
are asking themselves if the prison
population in California is dropping to
such a low level, we're actually closing
prisons.(...) But yet since 2012, we've
had an explosion of crime,(...) which
(01:37:19):
just those two statements in their own
seem to be in tension with one another.
(...) But I think you just gave an
explanation. I want to make sure that we
understand each other on that point.(...)
Why are we closing prisons and reducing
prison population, but yet we have an
explosive growth in crime? Is that due to
the 109 and other laws that California
(01:37:41):
has passed? Well, it's the two major
legal laws are AB 109,(...) shifting the
housing responsibility for people
sentenced to state prison, for non
violent, non serious, non sex offenses,
having them housed in a county jail(...)
setting that reduced the
(01:38:02):
population significantly.
Prop 57 also made individuals eligible
for parole much earlier than they would
have been under the historic determinant
of sentence law. So they only have to
serve actually a relatively small amount
of any term, no matter how long before
(01:38:25):
they're eligible for parole. So many
people get paroled a lot earlier. Now,
throw Prop 47 into it.(...) That
eliminated that sort of changed the whole
configuration of the theft laws, but it
also reduced all hard drugs from being
felonies to being misdemeanors. Darrell
(01:38:48):
Bock Possession. John Deeben Not sales,
not possession for sale, but possession
of hard drugs reduced to misdemeanors. So
now you have either minimal or no
enforcement of the laws when it comes to
possession, simple possession of drugs,
which when you control the drug abusing
(01:39:11):
criminal element,(...) by enforcing drug
laws, you're also impacting burglaries,
theft offenses, robberies, and other
crimes. But that was
all taken away by Prop 47,
I'm sure you've seen the
incredible explosion in
(01:39:38):
essentially theft, retail theft,(...)
including mobs going in and stealing
items,(...) individuals(...) crashing
into stores with their stolen cars and
stealing items,(...) people going in and
clearing out the shelves of high-end
beauty products and walking out.(...)
(01:39:59):
That's something new and novel,(...) and
it's frightening. If you're a customer at
Nordstrom's,(...) you don't want to see
30 or 40 thugs coming in and taking
things off the shelves. Darrell Bock And
not being stopped. Not being stopped on
the way out and or not being prosecuted
effectively by the local prosecutor.
(01:40:21):
Darrell Bock 47.(...) Changed drug
possession from felony to misdemeanor.
(...) Is that also where this smash and
grab originated if you steal(...) stuff
that's $950 or less? It's now only a
misdemeanor.(...) Robert Bock Prop 47
(01:40:43):
eliminated as a felony the crime of petty
theft with a prior. It screwed up the
definition of auto burglary,(...) which
has certainly contributed to San
Francisco's epidemic of auto burglary.
(...) It reduced the amount that had to be
stolen in order for it to be a felony
(01:41:04):
from $950. It increased the amount from
$400 to $950, and the criminals are well
aware of the amounts they can take.(...)
And I think that the general sense of
they're not really going to prosecute me
anyway, so the criminals were emboldened.
(01:41:27):
And you can see it on videos all the
time. One or two individuals walk in with
their little shopping bag full of stuff,
walk out(...) undeterred, very rarely
confronted by security,(...) certainly
very rarely confronted by law
enforcement. Darrell Bock Well, it seems
like to me it just has a pernicious
effect on people who want to be law
(01:41:47):
abiding citizens because say for example
if I,(...) my children are adults now,
but if I had a young child with me and I
was in a store and somebody grabbed
stuff, stole it and walked out and
they're not being stopped,(...) and my
child looked at me and said, "Dad,(...)
why isn't he being stopped and arrested?"
(01:42:07):
John Deebenco Something tells me your
child would be a moral person who would
be offended by the crime that they just
observed having her. Darrell Bock I think
they would, but that child today may look
to mom or dad and say, "Well, if that
person's not being stopped,(...) why
shouldn't I do it?" Who cares about the
(01:42:28):
law? John Deebenco Yeah, it certainly
undermines the goal of deterrence of the
criminal justice system. Darrell Bock And
in respect for the law. John Deebenco And
people aren't arrested, and in respect
for the law, for starters, which leads to
them, certain individuals being
emboldened to commit those crimes. And
look at San Francisco. It's not just
people being emboldened and lack of
(01:42:50):
deterrence. Up there you have retail
establishments shutting their doors.(...)
Nordstrom's, sort of a high-end retail
outfit, they're shut down in San
Francisco. They used to be in Union
Square, one of the premier places for
people to go shopping. They've shut down.
I think Bloomingdale's shut down. The
(01:43:11):
drug stores, they're shutting down right
and left in San Francisco.(...) They're
in a,(...) because they can't afford it.
(...) It's such a loss, it's not worth
being in business when you're losing
money all the time and putting your
employees at risk.(...) So they close
(01:43:31):
their doors. Darrell Bock It's almost an
indirect tax on law-abiding citizens,
isn't it? Darrell Bock So they're paying
the penalty of not having access to these
stores. John Deebenco Yeah, and then the
sales taxes that would have been
generated by those stores, those are no
longer in the public coffers to deal with
some of the problems that are out there,
especially in San Francisco, with all of
their problems, which are myriad.
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