America's Criminologist 11 25 25 Guest Steve Smith Senior Fellow, Pacific Research Institute

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col Steale sus Gattle's light.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Just listen as a fate.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Shadows a secret life.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
Doctor Curry last the AML scram anologist co.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Sells of law in the analysys a crowd break and say.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Brut And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Curry Myers.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
All right, all right, all right, I hope everybody's doing well.
Happy Thanksgiving. It's right around the corner. Welcome to America's Criminologists.
The show we dig deep into the root causes of
criminal behavior and analysis that shaped the public policies of America.
I'm your host, Doctor Curry Myers, apupplied criminologist at the system,
former sheriff. As always, our show is rooted in the

(01:03):
foundational values of faith, family, information, the bedrock acivic virtue.
Today's episode is going to take a close look at
the state of California, where justice reform has become one
of the most pressing political and social debates of our time.
Quite frankly, we'll examine how recent juvenile justice reforms may
be actually contributing to rising crime rates, and then we'll

(01:26):
break down Proposition thirty six. Voter approved it overwhelmingly, but
yet we're doing a slow role. It seems like out
of a Sacramento. But before we get started, let me
remind you that my newsletter is on substack at doctor
Currymeiers dot substack dot com, where you can find all
my published works, my essays, my op eds, all my

(01:47):
shows and the interviews that I do doctor Currymeyers dot
substack dot com. Folks, there's a growing concern across America
that we are building a generation of Ferrell what I
call feral Man. It's the time of my book, the
Avent of ferial Man, where young people are untethered from
moral responsibility and societal structure. This is no accident. The

(02:08):
erosion of faith, the breakdown of the nuclear family, the
abandonment of moral formation in our schools and in our
families are producing consequences that we are now seeing play
out in the juvenile justice system. And of course there's
absolutely in at least in California, there's no accountability in
my opinion. Today, we're going to discuss the impact of

(02:31):
removing school resource officers. We're going to talk about the
expansion of juvenile diversion without accountability. Of course, we're going
to look at some cities like San Francisco and some
of the outcomes that have occurred there. We're going to
look at the examples of increased assalts, retail theft, orcidivism,
all of those things that we're going to talk about.
And I'm really pleased to have an outstanding researcher and

(02:54):
a good friend joining me today is Steve Smith, the
Fellow in Urban Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Steve
is a published expert in law enforcement, peacekeeping, and public
policy with over twenty years of experience in domestic and
international policing. His work has appeared in major outlets including
The New York Time, Near Times. Steve, Welcome to America's criminologists.

(03:17):
Good to see and happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 6 (03:18):
Hey, doctor Myers, thanks for having me, and happy Thanksgiving
to everyone out there.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
You bet. Let's dive into your most recent article at
the Pacific Research Institute. By the way, my friends, take
a look at the Pacific Research Institute and all the
work that they do. They do Yeoman's work there when
it comes to many different areas. Steve does so much
work related to public criminal justice, public policy, but please

(03:44):
check them out. But he wrote a piece called Juvenile
Justice Reforms Drive a spike in criminal offenses. So you
lay out the reforms aimed at we're supposedly reducing youth
incarceration and instead led to spikes and violent crime in
order nice theft. What do you what do you? What's
the genesis of this article? And can you go into

(04:05):
a little bit more of it.

Speaker 6 (04:07):
Well, you know, every June, all of us working in
the field wait for the Attorney General's data drop with
the preceding year's arrest and reported crime statistics. And I
scrolled on down to the juvenile crime statistics and saw
that the number of juveniles arrest had hit over thirty

(04:29):
two thousand in twenty twenty four, which is a seventy
percent increase from twenty twenty one. At the same time,
there was an eighty two percent increase in homicides since
twenty nineteen, So we're talking about homicides, juvenile homicides that
haven't been this high since nineteen ninety and before. And

(04:54):
I think that correlates pretty directly with the the major
change in law, which is you know ABE thirteen ninety one,
which prohibits district attorneys from direct filing juveniles who are
the age of sixteen or seventeen and charging them as adults.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
So it's that they absolutely can't do it or anything.

Speaker 6 (05:17):
Well, no, they can't. They have to make a case
before a judge that the that the individual charged doesn't
meet the criteria to remain in juvenile court. Wow.

Speaker 5 (05:31):
I mean, we just take so many things away from
either In California in particular, we take so many carrot
and stick options from police and prosecutors in this state.
It's just amazing how it's working. One of the questions
I have is there is distrust in the accountability of

(05:51):
numbers and statistics. And my biggest concern is if California
is telling us this, it's probably worse because they aren't
necessarily somebody who may give us all the numbers.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
Yeah. Well, the our Department of Justice statistics you know,
come from the police, sheriffs, and other various law enforcement
agencies based on reported crimes and arrests. I think they're
pretty reliable, but you know, they mask the underreporting phenomenon
that we see in the National Crime Victimization Survey. Unfortunately,

(06:31):
the NCVS doesn't break their numbers out by you know,
state by state, but twenty twenty four, you know, UCR
Crime statistics of reported crimes are running over four million
below what the actual crime rates are according to the NCVS.
And that's a historic gap. You know, what we call

(06:53):
the dark figure, Yeah, crimes.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
So, yeah, they've never been that disassociated. They've they've been
relatively close. Usually the survey is higher, but they still
are relatively close at least everything that I've seen in history.
But you're absolutely right, it's out of whack and has
been for the probably the last four years.

Speaker 6 (07:13):
That's exactly right. I put it at about four years.
So we're seeing a widening in this dark figure statistic.
And I know dark figure sounds sinister, but what it
means is, you know, our policymakers have an incomplete picture
of what crime actually is, and they lean heavily on
the reported statistics, but they're forgetting that the surveyed statistics

(07:36):
run far higher.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
Can we talk for a second this I think this
is really important, Steve. Can we talk to for a
second just about unreported crime and what you're seeing in
California with respect to unreported crime. So our listeners and
our viewers have some idea just how much of a

(07:58):
problem it actually is.

Speaker 6 (08:01):
Well, I just this morning took a look at my
home counties statistics and what we're seeing is a you know,
a drop in Oh. The statistics I use, by the way,
come from the unit, the unified communications system for Santa
Cruz County in San Benito County, so they're pretty reliable.

Speaker 7 (08:24):
Right.

Speaker 6 (08:25):
They track all incoming reported calls for service, and what
we're seeing is a decline in calls for service, and
we're also seeing a decline in officer initiated activity. And
that's really worrying, right, We're seeing fewer people are willing
to pick up the phone and call the police, and
then the police that are out there are either buried

(08:46):
in calls or for whatever other reasons, are not generating
as much proactive police work as they have, you know, say,
ten years ago.

Speaker 5 (08:55):
Well, you know what the progressives are saying. They're saying,
actually that data support our policies and the fact that
it's having an impact that their policies are having an
impact on the crime rate to the to the positive
for them. How do we explain to the public that
is not the case.

Speaker 6 (09:12):
Yeah, those are those are gend up numbers. They've you know,
they've reduced the crime rates by decriminalizing crime.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
There you go, bingo.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
If you reduce the number of crimes that you can
be arrested for, then of course there are going to
be fewer.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
Yeah. I think this is what's really important is people
have to understand that we've had all out decriminalization that
has occurred in many in California, across the nation, but
in particular in California. We've had many things that used
to be against the law that is no longer against
the law. And then you have the what I call

(09:49):
the behavioral side, where police may not actually enforce the
law in some areas because of a lack of prosecratorial
reasoning who they may not in some areas want to prosecute,
or they you know, there's no reason to make the
arrest because they know it's not going to go anywhere,

(10:09):
and so that has some sort of behavior on the police.
Is that not the case?

Speaker 6 (10:15):
That is a case.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (10:18):
Police officers feel that their efforts are going to come
to nothing, so you know, in sort of the economics
of decision making, they focus their efforts where they can
do the most good.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
Yeah. It's a it's a it's a it's an organism
that is a that is alive and well, and they
feed off each other. And that's the reason the criminal
justice public policy is not just police. I mean, it's
the prosecutors, it's the courts, it's the correction side of it,
and it's the laws that are made. You know, all
of those things are contributing together. Is part of the

(10:55):
juvenile issue also a result of schools not enforcing juvenile
deviancy in the schools. And there's no there's no cause
and effect there in the school system because you know,
in the fifties and sixties and seventies, you could get
kicked out of school for bad behavior and there would

(11:17):
be a juvenile officer that would follow up with that
family and in that juvenile.

Speaker 6 (11:23):
Well, you know, after the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis,
a lot of school districts in California responded by having
police officers removed from their campuses and defunding the SRO programs.
Sometimes they're funded through the sheriff for police, and sometimes

(11:44):
the costs of those officers are born by the school districts.
So many shut them down, and that was unfortunate. They
sort of well, they kind of they'd ended up this
phrase called the school to prison pipeline, which in my
mind was always a failing school, you know, not properly

(12:07):
educating their kids or their students, you know, would then
wind up in the criminal justice system. But that's been
changed now and they're saying that the reason that there
is a school to prison pipeline is because of the
police officers making arrests on campus and essentially you know,
you know, using as a pipeline to funnel people into
the criminal justice system. And I think that's just wrong.

(12:29):
School resource officers are kind of the they're really the
front line of intelligence gathering when it comes to youthful offenders.
You know, if you have a high school that has
a potential for gang activity, you know, an alert SRO knows,
you know, if there's going to be potential violence not
just on campus, but off campus, and he can intervene

(12:53):
and prevent that from occurring. Right, So we've sort of
taken away this you know, kind of frontline piece keeping
element right at the high school and you know, junior
higher maybe even elementary school level, and we allow those
problems to grow by taking SROs out of the schools
and one of our local high schools, you know, it

(13:14):
was a matter of six months after the removal of
the sheriff's deputy who was the SRO there before, there
was a stabbing and a student was killed.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
Yeah, it's once again we're not following the data. At
least in my opinion, the data shows that criminality, the
higher crime rates occurred with the ages of sixteen to
about twenty five or so for various reasons. Youth, you know,
the complacency, the lack of you know, like front lobe

(13:48):
capability for people so they don't make good decisions, the
increase in testosterone, especially in young men. All those are
you contributing factors to the why the crime rate is
at a place, But it's it's even you know why,
it's why car insurance is more expensive for you know,
someone that's eighteen to twenty five is for the very
same reasons. And yet we look at that data and

(14:11):
we don't actually turn it into public policy in California,
where we say the numbers tell us we should be
focusing on these people, these aged people, and trying to
help them in some preventive measure, but also will hold
them accountable because they're going to be had the highest
recidivism rates.

Speaker 6 (14:31):
That's true, you know, I don't know. I actually think
that that study comes out of Santa Cruz County and
a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
You know, that says, you know, we can't hold anybody
criminal responsible under the age of twenty five because of

(14:52):
this pre frontal lobe under development theory. If that was true,
then I mean, I think the you know, entire Milion
terry would have to be discharged because the pulk of
them are all under twenty five. I think a couple
of Mercury astronauts are twenty five.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
You know.

Speaker 6 (15:08):
It seems like, you know, a weird place to draw
the line, but I think it's a line that needs
to be drawn around individuals, not a bright line based
on age. Because what's really the difference between someone who's
seventeen years old in three hundred and sixty four days
and somebody who's eighteen, you know, And the answer to
that is twenty four hours or the tick of a clock.
And that's really an obtuse and incorrect way. You know,

(15:31):
we need to evaluate each of these people as individuals
and you know, and slot them into the right program
for them.

Speaker 5 (15:40):
Right. It goes back to formation right. I mean, if
you're being formed correctly in your home, and everything starts
in your home first, and if you're being formed correctly
on good behavior, you know the seven deadly sins, you know,
staying away from those things. Kind of that moral outreach
and growth that families and dads in particular supposed to

(16:00):
be able to do. But you also send them to school.
And there was a time where schools actually would punish
bad behavior, and we're not having that. In fact, it
seems like a lot of schools are just graduating. They're
not getting rid of people because that they lose money.
Because if I got if I'm going to kick somebody out,
i might be losing twenty thousand a year per student
if I'm kicking them out. So I'm just going to

(16:21):
graduate them up. And that's the reason we're seeing horrible
data come with graduation rates, and we have people coming
into college that aren't prepared.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
Yeah, that recent report by the University of California at
San Diego showed that I believe about eighty nine percent
of their students needed some level of remedial mathematics to
be ready for college algebra and pre calculus level work,

(16:55):
which is stunning. I mean, the University of California at
San Diego is a I believe, the number three university
in our state system, after Berkeley and UCLA in terms
of prestige and selectivity, and it's twenty first in the
world in College World rankings. Yet we have high schools

(17:16):
that are inflating grades, and we have colleges that are
no longer requiring SATs and SATs or acts, which we're
an independent measure of a student's grade, right because an
A might not be an A you know, from campus
to campus in terms of, you know, how well they

(17:38):
do in math, for example, So we don't have that anymore,
and they're coming to school colleges unprepared. And if that's
occurring at UCSD, one of the most prestigious universities in
the state, you can rest assured that that's occurring downstream
at the csus and the community college levels levels. You know,
I think community colleges really band aids now on failed

(18:01):
high school curriculum and learning.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
It's almost become just a way for you know, almost
athletics to try to make it to the next level
or something. You know, it's I mean that it becomes
quite like a generator for athletics.

Speaker 6 (18:18):
Basically, certainly, some of the students you know that find
their way into the community college system are looking to
you know, repair a failed high school career, at least
in terms of academics and many others. You know, you
are using the community college system as it's intended, you know,
as a more affordable and local option, you know, to
get the first two years of university or college level

(18:39):
work under their belt before they transfer up. But I
can tell you for my fifteen years of teaching in
the community college system, the number of pre college mathematics
course is offered greatly exceeds the number of college level
on higher or college level math being taught.

Speaker 5 (18:57):
It's an increase in basket weaving one oh three.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Well, it's you know, I mean at UCSD the they
had over six hundred students who couldn't do junior high
school level math.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Wow. Yeah, in your in your work you I believe
you did. San Francisco is a case study? Is that correct?

Speaker 6 (19:16):
Well, we certainly look at San Francisco a lot, you know,
the the boy how to sum it up, you know,
the societal decline in the quality of life, the decline
the level of criminality on the streets, you know, was ugly.
At first, I didn't believe it, you know, I think

(19:37):
I was somebody was telling me about Tucker Carlson's documentary,
and I don't normally watch him, but I took a
look at it, and it's only an hour and a
half from where I live, and I was shocked and
went up there, and sure enough, it was bad, especially
in the Tenor Loine and some of the neighborhoods around it,
you know, you know, flash mob thefts, drug use on

(20:05):
the streets, prostitution on the streets, public defecation, garbage, it
was just it was crazy.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
I had somebody I know go up there recently and
said that they had to literally watch where they stepped
because of the feces.

Speaker 6 (20:20):
Certainly, if you're in the Tenderloin area, you know that area,
you know, to the south of Union Square and along
Market Street, it's still pretty bad, although I do think
it's improving.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
So they they got rid of the DA in California,
San Francisco in particular, Did we see something better with
a new DA that came in as a result, or
is it still struggling and if.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
So, why.

Speaker 6 (20:51):
It's certainly better Chesebodeine. You know, he deployed a really
experimental approach to criminal justice. His intention was to you know,
decriminalize keep people out of the formal criminal justice system.
And I assume if you you know, if you wait

(21:15):
long enough, under their theory of the twenty five year
old brain maturation theory, that they're just going to grow
out of it. But of course we know that it
just actually graduates more into criminality, right, I mean, they're
going to the worst it gets is really what it
boils down to. And San Francisco spend you know, billions

(21:37):
on street treatment for drug addicts that just doesn't work.

Speaker 5 (21:42):
Yeah, I mean it's physiologically, people's brains, they they they
developed differently, but by and large, there isn't good brain
development until you're in your mid twenties. But just like
your your body changes as you get older too, I mean,
it's it's has no impact on how you should behave,

(22:03):
you know. I mean that's they're they're almost like conflicting
the fact that just because you don't have a completely
developed brains, that that you're you can ignore whatever behavior
you do out in the public.

Speaker 6 (22:19):
Right, you know, instead of viewing you know, criminal behavior
for youthful offenders as an aberration. They treated as something
that's normal, of course, ignoring the majority of people who
don't commit criminal acts or act immorally who are in
the same age group. And to me that that's the
best way to dispute their theory is just look at

(22:40):
the number of people who manage to make it to
twenty five and not do anything wrong.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
If somebody waived a wand and made you in charge,
what should some of the you know, with respect to
California public policy on juveniles, what are some of the
things that you would like to see that.

Speaker 6 (23:01):
I would at first, I would put an end to
these age related bright lines right right now. Anybody under
the age of sixteen can't be charged grimly at all
in adult court. And we had an example of that
in Santa Cruz County where Adrian Gonzalez, someone who was
fifteen and almost sixteen, kidnapped, raped, and murdered a young girl.

(23:26):
This was before ABE thirteen ninety one passed, but it
was applied retroactively to him, so he had the benefit
of the change in the law even though he had
committed it before it had occurred. You know, he's been
in prison ever since. In his last attempt to be

(23:47):
released failed because there is one last stop gap in
the law to prevent these youthful offenders from getting back
out on the street, and that's ones that are designated
as actually violent predators and killers. So he was kept,
but he's going to be back at the you know,
back in court again, probably inside of a year, to

(24:08):
again apply to be released. The other downside to this
age or maturation thing is that all juveniles, regardless of
the age they entered into the system, are released by
their twenty fifth birthday, which means if you're a seventeen
year old and three hundred and fifty days old, the
longest you can go to prison for or at least

(24:31):
be in custody in a juvenile facility because you won't
go to prison, is seven years, and I think in
some of these cases that's an inadequate amount of time. Again,
I think we need to look at offenders as individuals,
regardless of their age, right, look at the sophistication, look
at the level of violence, look at their criminal histories,
and then make a determination then if they would benefit

(24:55):
from the therapeutic programs in the juvenile system, or if
they need to be in the adult system, which also
has therapeutic programs in it, but will hold them longer.
There is no mechanism in the law to transfer to
somebody from juvenile jurisdiction to adult jurisdiction unless they commit
a new offense as an adult while they're under the

(25:18):
jurisdiction of the juvenile court. And that sounds almost crazy
to hear it coming out of my mouth, but that's
the way it is right now.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
Gosh. So somebody could literally commit a.

Speaker 6 (25:29):
A murder, they could commit a multiple murder.

Speaker 5 (25:32):
And they would have to they would have to be
released by the age of twenty five. That is correct,
without any I want to I want to repeat that.
So they could commit multiple murders and there isn't a
system in California that would keep that person in prison
past the age of twenty five. They're not going to well, so.

Speaker 6 (25:54):
They can do these what are called two year civil recommitments.
So we had another murderer about twenty five years ago
named Donnie Schmidt, who at the time I investigated the case,
was the oldest ward ever held in the Youth Authority
and he was in his thirties. So he had gone

(26:16):
to three of the civil recommitment hearings and failed. But
eventually we couldn't find a jury willing to keep him
in jail, and the last one hung eight to four,
so he's out. And he was also another juvenile murderer
who raped and drowned a three year old girl in
a bathtub.

Speaker 5 (26:34):
Oh my goodness. Do you know the circumstances of that
particular case so.

Speaker 7 (26:42):
Well?

Speaker 6 (26:43):
I know that he was at a party in a
community near where I live. The next morning, after everyone
woke up from their drunkenness, he went into the restroom
or the bathroom of the house where the little girl lived,
and she was having a bath, and that's where he
shut the door and raped her and then drowned her.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Oh my goodness, this is incredible, you know, Steve here,
thanks for bringing these things alive. We're going to take
a short break. Can you come back for the second segment?

Speaker 6 (27:12):
Absolutely all right.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
When we return, we'll discuss another controversial California reform Proposition
thirty six in the slow rollout of this proposition that
just recently I think passed nearly seventy percent by the public.
Stay tuned, we'll be right back.

Speaker 8 (27:45):
Take km ET Radio with you everywhere you go by
downloading the new, updated, free iPhone, Android, phone and tablet
remote app found in the Apple App Store or Google
Play Store. Listen live to your favorite shows on all
of your devices. Information can be found on the KMET
Radio website at KMET fourteen ninety am dot com. That

(28:08):
Weapon Dress again km e T fourteen ninety am dot com.
Download your free new KMET Remote app today. Go to
the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for your
free new KMET Radio Remote mobile app today.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
If you've been waiting to go solar, don't wait any longer.
Proposed legislation ending the thirty percent federal tax credit could
pass this summer and go into effect by December thirty first.
With utility rates rising year after year and summer hikes
with no end in sight, now is the time to
walk in fixed energy costs for years to come. As
Guard Energy is a local, family owned company that serves

(28:51):
southern California since two thousand and eight. With over four
thousand flawless installs and personalized service you can trust. Call
eight five five seven six zero Energy. That's eight five
five seven six zero three six three seven Before waiting
costs you thirty percent more as Guard Energy, Local, trusted proven.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Hello listeners, this is Christopher from the Christopher Show. Hey,
if you miss one of our shows you're at kam to.
You don't worry about it. You can go to our
web page and that's KMET fourteen ninety am dot com.
Go to the homepage, click on the SoundCloud tab and
hear any show anytime you want.

Speaker 7 (29:35):
As you know, I have been talking about standing up
for our country doing something. He's big box stores stayed open?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Well the little guy's clothes?

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Will our voices be heard? Does voting with our dollars work?
Patriotswitch dot com gives patriots the power to walk away
from the big box stores forever. Stop supporting the enemies
of freedom. Now, that's why patriotswitch dot com was created
for those who support America. Patriotswitch dot com.

Speaker 9 (30:04):
Hi, folks, Doctor Curry Myers here to let you know
that my new show, it's called America's Criminologist with Doctor
Curry Myers every Tuesday at one pm between The Dave
Ramsey Show and Kevin Mcola Show. Is a former state
trooper special agent share from a major county. I will
offer sharp insights into the pressing issues shaping American society today.
I'll have guests, news, and my insights as an applied

(30:26):
criminologist throughout the one hour show. So criminals and the
progressive politicians that allow them to fester beware because this
show is directed at you, America's criminologist, every Tuesday at
one pm.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
On k m E T.

Speaker 5 (30:44):
All right, welcome back. This segment is brought to you
by Saint Michael's group dot substack dot com. It's a
substack that I do a podcast on that's dedicated to
In my book The Advent of ferial Man, I talked
about the importance of faith family information. This substack focuses
on this from a religious point of view. And Hey,

(31:04):
I'm going to have a brand new Christmas album out
and I'm putting it out on this substack page. It's
going to be a little bit of like Dean Martin
type stuff. Then it's also going to be some traditional
Christmas music. So going to start releasing that out. All
the edits are done and cutting. We're good to go.
So looking forward to having out and the more you drink,
the better I sound. So welcome back to the show.

(31:29):
We're contending our conversation with Steve Smith at the Pacific
Research Institute. Steve, when we finished off air, we kind
of had a brief discussion and can we can we
kind of go back to that discussion. So it was
all about what people need to understand that most criminals,
we know who they are, the data shows who they are,

(31:51):
and really about it's five percent of people. You know,
we're not talking about fifty or seventy percent of the people.
We're talking about four to five percent are the ones
that keep reoffending. And really that's broadly true across America.
So what are you seeing in California with those kind
of recidivism rates with a specific percentage of population.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
Well, I mean, I agree with the theory that you know,
it's a small percentage of the population generates the bulk
of criminal activity and that they tend to repeat it
unless they're incarcerated or what we call incapacitated. Right. You know,
right after COVID hit, there was fear that it would

(32:38):
spread in the prison system. To give you an example,
and the governor ordered the release of fourteen thousand non
violent inmates summarily right under his emergency powers. In the
two years they were arrested again non violent inmates. Thirty
of them had committed first or an agree murder. So

(33:04):
you know, we're really bad at predicting who is not
going to reoffend, is what I think.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
It is.

Speaker 6 (33:16):
It's yeah, it's it's little more than a Ouiji board.
And when you call somebody a non violent offender, that
could be for the current offense that they're in custody for.
But you need to take a deeper dive and need
to look at every one of these persons as an
as an individual and see what their criminal history is.
You know, statistically, by the time somebody gets to prison,
they've already been in county jail in and out nine times, right,

(33:40):
so we know who they are. And you know, so
your current offense, you know, your current commitment offense might
be non violent, but it doesn't mean you don't have
a non violent history. And that was the mistake of
the governor made and frankly, shame on the Department of
Corrections for not advising them, not advising them properly. But
you know, at the time, the director of the Department

(34:01):
of Corrections was somebody who was a nurse who had
an associate degree. Oh yeah, not not even a experienced
peace officer, not a clinical psychologist, not anybody that I
would normally expect would be the director of one of
the largest prison systems in the country.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
You know, this brings up another topic that it's about
political patronage in jobs. It seems like we are seing
there's always been I mean that people get appointed to positions,
so it's political. But in the past, they always had
a they were, they had a pedigree that got them

(34:42):
into that position, and then who they knew mattered. But
we seem to be just picking people out of the
blue that don't have any in so many different positions
in America today, not just in California. We're picking people
just solely based on patronage.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
It seems like, well, I think that's true in California.
It's particularly bad though, because we're a Democratic supermajority state,
so there really isn't anybody minding the store anymore.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Yeah, yeah, no checks and balances, and that's.

Speaker 6 (35:16):
The that's correct. You know, we need to you know,
there's a I guess there's sort of a political sweet
spot where the you know, party you know, out of
party out of power needs to have at least about
forty percent of the votes to avoid these super majority
situations where the Democrats or in a red state, the
Republicans can do whatever they want without any system of

(35:39):
checks and balances.

Speaker 5 (35:41):
Yeah. And one of the things that I find interesting
in your research that that you are you're finding themes,
and that theme constantly goes back to this individualism that
individuals should be public polishes should be based on the individual,
not in mass. It should should really be weighted towards

(36:02):
an individual person, their character, their classification, their background, their
mental health status as an individual, and stop throwing these
things into these generalities that we often see when it
comes to public policy.

Speaker 6 (36:21):
Yep, I agree, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
So we want to turn a little bit and talk
about Proposition thirty six. The measure passed overwhelmingly. I think
was sixty nine percent correct if I'm wrong, or close
to seventy percent.

Speaker 6 (36:35):
That's correct. And it passed in every county.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
In every county, and fifty six of the fifty eight
I think of sheriffs and DA supported it.

Speaker 6 (36:47):
That's correct.

Speaker 5 (36:48):
So I mean it was a huge amount of people,
and I think the two das that didn't support it
are gone.

Speaker 6 (36:54):
So unfortunately, that's not the case Jeff Rosen and Santa
Clara County opposed properties. He's still in.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Office, okay, but the La County was the other one, right,
l LA County.

Speaker 6 (37:06):
Yeah, George Gascon got walloped. Nathan Hockman beat him with
sixty one percent of the vote.

Speaker 5 (37:13):
Yeah, which is phenomenal. I mean he's going to be
a you know, great prosecutor. It seems like, I mean,
we'll it's kind of.

Speaker 6 (37:20):
I think he's terrific former US attorney, he knows this
stuff versus George Gascon who had a bar card but
never had prosecuted a single case.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
Right, So, how does Prop thirty six differ from some
of the past reforms? What makes it so important to
it passed? So is it is it really becoming something
of just a slow rollout or is it not even
being rolled out?

Speaker 6 (37:45):
Well, there have been nine thousand or so cases prosecuted
by the various counties. The bulk of my believer coming
out of Orange County right now, somewhere less than twenty
five percent of the people charged have elected to uh,
you know, go into mandatory treatment. The problem with even

(38:09):
that smaller percentages that we have you know, inadequate bedspace
or space in treatment programs, and the governor has only
funded a quarter of what was believed would be necessary.
So he's committed one hundred million out of a four
hundred million ask.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
And then you have mental health issues, right, those become
mandatory opportunities to or is it only drug treatment?

Speaker 6 (38:44):
Well, I believe they go hand in hand. And you know,
most of these people are what we call dual diagnosis, right,
they carry a drug addiction and a mental health diagnosis,
so most of them qualify for mental health services, not
just drug treatment. Ironically, you know, March of last year,
we passed Prop one, which is a six and a
quarter billion dollar spending a bond. Essentially, the voters voted

(39:10):
to tax themselves in order to get a handle on
the mental health problem on our streets. And I think
you know all states. You know, we beat up pretty
hard on California, and justifiably so, but I think, yeah,
this is everywhere everywhere. You know, too many of the
mentally ill are not getting treatment, they're living on the streets,

(39:32):
they're slipping into drug addiction as a way of dealing
with their mental health issues, and then they find themselves addicted.
So it's a national crisis.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
We've abandoned the mental health philosophy that we had probably
beginning in the late seventies and then eighties, we started
to decentralize. We started to go to community programs, We
started to go to treatment, pharmacological treatment as opposed to
contingency management treatment. And that would be you know, where
you're actually physically interacting and watching somebody ensuring that they're

(40:07):
taking taking the meds. We're just and the problem is
with opioids in particular and most mental health, you're talking
about long term contingency management that needs to be done
of these people in order for them to even begin
to get better. It's not just a simple twelve step program.
You know, on the drug treatment side, it takes significant

(40:28):
time a lot of you know, for opioids, sometimes it's
eighteen to twenty four months before they can even they're
you know, halfway start to function correctly again of contingency management,
and there's nothing out there for them.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
That's the truth of it.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
You know.

Speaker 6 (40:45):
I used to be on the board of the agency
that ran the methodone clinic in our county, and yes,
eighteen to twenty four months you know, between you know,
sobering them, you know, going through detox, getting them on maintenance,
and then tapering them off. Yeah, it's about a two
year process, but it's cost effective. You know, the cost

(41:08):
of a you know, methodone treatment is far more affordable
than the amount of criminal activity these people are capable of.
You know, I mean think about it. You know, even
a fifty dollars a day aroin habit, which would be
kind of an affordable one at least back when I
was in the business. You know, that translates to tens

(41:28):
of thousands of dollars that these people need just to
supply their addiction, you know, let alone feed themselves and
close themselves, and some find some form of a place
to live, and they bake up for that because they
can't work by committing crimes. And then you know, the
value of stolen goods is a few pennies on the dollar,

(41:50):
so to get the fifty thousand they need, you know,
they need to steal one hundred thousand or more. So
it just makes it tends to me to have effective treatment,
and in many cases, at least during that detox period,
that's got to be in a facility, otherwise they're just
going to slip back into their drug You know, habits

(42:13):
and behaviors, and.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
Well, what's frustrating is California used to be the kind
of the golden apple of opportunity when it came to
really good public policy on this issue. If you, I
think Proposition forty seven came in at twenty thirteen if
memory serves, But prior to that, judges really had the

(42:38):
great opportunity to have three abilities. It's either jail, mandatory
mental health treatment, mandatory drug treatment, or a combination of
those three things. But we also had jail space, and
we had enough capability to give them the treatment. And

(42:59):
we kind of we took something that was considered a
national achievement in having having a I mean, California at
pretty low crime rates in some of those areas as
a result, and yet we just completely blew it up
and we're getting stuck with what we got today.

Speaker 6 (43:18):
Correct, But county jails aren't even an option anymore because
of ABE one oh nine. We transferred to our triple
non you know, nonviolent, non serious, non sexual offenders from
the prisons and pushed them back out on the counties.
So if you go to any county jail in California
and ask them, who's the majority of their inmates, they're
going to say they're felons, and that's what led to

(43:40):
the failure of Prop. Forty seven. You know, you know,
raising the threshold for felony theft to nine hundred and
fifty dollars is not a radical theory, as opponents you
know often said, you know, that aligns US with Texas.
The difference is Texas still treats misdemeanants like misdemeanants, and
if you commit a misdemeanor theft, you're going to go
to county jail. In California, that was no longer an

(44:02):
option because the county jails are already full of felons.
It didn't turn long for that reality to filter out
onto the street, and people understand that the worst that's
going to happen to them if they commit a misdemeanor
crime is that they're going to get a ticket with
a court date and in order to appear before a judge.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Now where these people actually committed new crimes and got arrested,
and then they're being held in county because there isn't
enough room, or they they picked them from the state.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
They so the triple nons are serving multi year sentences
in county jails, which is a problem in and of itself. Sure,
you're really designed for short term custodial periods. So now
we have people in jail serving three, four or five years.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
Right, So if you're a just so the audience know,
it's really a year is about what a jail, you know,
unless you have some judge may do something consecutive that
within that parameter, but generally about a year, and then
that's correct.

Speaker 6 (45:03):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
But the other important part, and you hit on this
was is detainees. It's people who have been arrested pending
criminal investigations.

Speaker 6 (45:13):
Yep. So at this point they're not even booked unless
they're an ongoing their crime is on going, like a
misdemeanor battery or something like that, that person may be held,
but any nonviolent misdemeanor is not even to get booked.

Speaker 5 (45:26):
Yeah, which means that jails weren't Yeah, they're out.

Speaker 6 (45:31):
Which means misdemeanors aren't misdemeanors anymore. They're really infractions, right right.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
And and that's what we saw with property crime is
all that's.

Speaker 6 (45:38):
Exactly what happened is that retail stores became at ms
for drug addicts. Right, because they could go in and
as long as they kept their thefts down to nine
hundred and forty nine dollars, Uh, they weren't going to
get booked.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
Yeah, and then a crept above that, nobody cared. Even
when it went back, even if.

Speaker 6 (45:57):
Tell any amounts, nobody cared because again the jails and
take them. And in that, you know, economics of decision making,
we talked about the police officers, maybe, well, I can't
invest my time in this failed revolving door system. I
need to focus on more serious offenses. And that's what
allowed all these quality of life crimes to explode in California.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
Two years ago, I went out and embedded with Riverside
County Sheriff's Office and different bureaus, not just patrol, but
also in the corrections, went to the air unit, went
to the tactical unit, went to all the different bureaus
that they have, and time and time again we would
run into people who would have fifteen twenty twenty five
active bench warrants, all because the jail had no place

(46:45):
to put them, and so they were just getting infractions
upon infractions upon infractions, just kind of building up that
were ended up being meaningless, you know.

Speaker 6 (46:56):
To the absolutely and it leads the judges with no option. Yeah,
they know even if they remand somebody who does come
in on one of their bench warrants, they're going to
go over to the jail, they're going to get a
pre trial evaluation, and they're going to get put back
out on the street again because of the lack of space.

Speaker 5 (47:16):
Let me ask you a question here. I think when
Prop forty seven, by the time the thirteen years ran,
about ninety percent of the of drug laws we're not
being enforced. It just kind of became a d crim
maybe especially at the lower level.

Speaker 6 (47:33):
It was effective. It was in effect decriminalization. So anybody
who's an advocate for decriminalization, the medicalization of drug use,
things like that, just needs to take a look at
what happened to California and to a lesser degree, what
happened in Oregon and Washington, which had similar policies in
place regarding right they they're low level drug use, and

(47:57):
we could.

Speaker 5 (47:57):
One of the good news, one of the good news
is that we now have field research of years to
show that the drug legalization argument did not work.

Speaker 6 (48:09):
It doesn't and I think, you know, I think we
have an information gap here because I think a lot
of public policy makers, you know, they grew up when
you know, the most serious thing was you know, some mushrooms,
marijuana and coke. Yeah, that's what they partied on in
you know, college, and maybe it's what they continue to
party on. I don't know. But you know, the pharmacists

(48:30):
of the world, the criminal pharmacists or chemists of the world,
you know, run far ahead of public policy. And and
we're able to replicate you know, fentanyl cheaply using you know,
precursors imported from China and chemistry university students in Mexico
and other places in Latin America, and and and make

(48:53):
the most dangerous you know opioid known demand cheaply available
on the streets of California and the rest of the country.
And we saw the results of that. You know, the
last numbers I published, we're we're close to three hundred
and seventy five thousand fentanyl only deaths in the last
ten years. You know, fifteen years ago, you know, seven

(49:14):
hundred and some people died of opiate you know, in
fentanyl overdoses. And now we're in the you know, tens
of thousands, right, I mean, you know, we're losing more
people to fentanyl deaths every year than we lost in
all of the global War on terror worse, you know,
two times in Iraq and one time in Afghanistan, you know,

(49:36):
far more than we're killed in nine to eleven. So
as a result, Yet, and yet we're continuing to watch
these people die. And the best that public policy is
doing in California is throwing more narcan at the problem.
You know, open we can you know, zap these people
in the chests with some malock zone, bring them back
to life, and then we don't have to count that

(49:57):
as a statistical death. Even though that problem, we'll continue
because that person who I call the walking dead is
just going to go find another dose.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
Yeah, that's so true that with Prop thirty six, are
there now some drug laws that are actually being enforced.

Speaker 6 (50:14):
Well that's the idea. So it's kind of a three
strikes you're out thing. Right, If if you get arrested
under Prop thirty six and you have two convictions for
theft crimes, or if you have possession conviction, you know, convictions,

(50:34):
then that third one can trigger a felony prosecution.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
Yeah, so let's look at some jurisdictions in California. Where
is where are some counties that we are seeing really
good public policy, really good enforcement things are working there
in those particular areas, are there or if you don't
want to mention, that's fine?

Speaker 6 (51:00):
Is it?

Speaker 5 (51:00):
Well?

Speaker 6 (51:00):
I mean I think Orange County is doing yeoman's work.
You know, the bulk of those nine thousand Prop thirty
six cases are coming out of one county, and that's Orange.
You know, Yellow County, where our mutual friend Jeff Reisick
is hard working hard to implement Prop thirty six. And
you know, Jeff comes at it from a very personal standpoint.

(51:23):
His eldest nephew is an addict, you know, living on
the streets of Sacramento, which is the nearest big city
to Yellow County.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
So so much of Jeff's work is statistical. I mean
he backs it up with research and does his own studies.
I didn't mean interrupt, but he's just an excellent DA.

Speaker 6 (51:41):
He's doing a great job, and he also runs the
most transparent DA's office is. You know, you recently wrote
about the breakdown at the prosecutorial level, not just in California,
but in other jurisdictions. But Jeff statistics are the most
transparent in the state, so you could look at exactly
what his office is doing, what they file on, what

(52:02):
they don't file on, and why.

Speaker 5 (52:05):
Well, they love him because he's I think he's been
there for five five consecutive terms or something like that.

Speaker 6 (52:11):
I think he's in his fifth term right now, so
that he looks like he's pretty young. Yeah, younger than me,
So you know, I mean, I hope you can keep him,
or I hope he finds another place if he doesn't
want to stay in Yolow, where he can stay in
public service, because he's now standing public service.

Speaker 5 (52:30):
It's those kind of guys that's run for governor, attorney general,
you know.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
Right right, well, you know, and I think that there's
a misconception out there that you know, the DA's are
sitting around, you know, twirling their mustaches, finding out ways
to violate people's rights, and that's not the case. You know,
you know, I really, you know, the the civil rights
argument falls flat if you look at the prosecutorial statistics.

(52:54):
You know, prosecutors evaluate cases that they don't believe are prosecutable,
that lack of evidence, you know, and they dismissed them
out of hand. Frankly, you know they they get more
people off, if you will, than public defenders certainly do.
And people forget about that. You know, they're making hard
decisions all the time about the quality of cases.

Speaker 5 (53:15):
And yeah, and from a law enforcement point of view,
there are some cases that get pushed up that probably
shouldn't have gone gotten pushed up. So I mean that's
that's the checkloot balances in American system. That you have
a DA of Ethics, law enforcement ethics, DA of Ethics,
and sometimes they could say, wait a minute, you guys

(53:37):
need more stuff.

Speaker 6 (53:38):
Absolutely back to you. I think they say that. I
think they do it every day and they get no
credit for that.

Speaker 5 (53:45):
So tell us how we can follow your work the
Pacific Research Institute, your work in particular, and some things
that you're up to right now.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (53:56):
Well, the next big event for us is our Febry
Ideas and Action Conference, where the keynote speaker is going
to be Mayor Matt Mayhon of San Jose, the safest
big city in America, who has rolling up his sleeves,
much like Mayor Leuri is in San Francisco. You know,
tackling the hard problems of public policy and civic management

(54:21):
in practical ways. They're working hand in hand with their
law enforcement partners. And when I say they, I mean
Mayor Luri in San Francisco and Mayor Mayhann and San
Francisco or San Jose, and they're doing a terrific job,
you know, with the limited tools they have available to them.
All of them are frustrated with the Governor's you know,

(54:43):
parsimonious approach to funding Prop thirty six, which is vital yep.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
Steve, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Your insights
on California justice reforms have both been timely in thought
provoking to our listeners. Be sure to follow Steve's work
at the Specific Research Institute. And don't get to subscribe
to my subspect substack, doctor currymeers dot substack dot com.
Next time we'll see you. My guest next week is

(55:08):
going to be Father Andrew Hope for a Dominican priest
with a PhD. To prepare us for the Christmas season.
Stay safe, have a great day.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Co Steale suits the cattle's weight shot us as trusting
me as a fate A shadows a secret line. Doctor
curry lyons got do the sc amery co scram analogist con.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Sales of the law in the Anlas cackles a crime,
breakin change, Brustar, the fame,