Old Brown tries to fix a young Brown's mistake

— Hang around long enough and you might see things turn full circle. People included.

Like a comet, they come back around.

Gov. Jerry Brown is a comet. He dominated the Capitol cosmos two generations ago, floated off and circled back.

Now one of the major public policy issues of 40 years ago also has returned, meteor-like. It concerns criminal sentencing.

Like too many things involving government, however, the jargon is wonky: "determinate" and "indeterminate."

Put simply, it's about whether a judge determines how long a felon will be locked up, or left undetermined, with parole boards having the flexibility to retain or release an inmate based on behavior and perceived rehabilitation.

In 1976, young Gov. Brown was a reformer who signed legislation changing sentencing from indeterminate to determinate.

Last week, he proposed a new reform: Scrap that 1970s reform and return to basically the way things had been for six decades before.

Times change. Situations change. Ideas? Not so much.

I asked Brown why he and the Legislature had changed the system in the first place four decades ago.

Back then, he'd been thinking about it for a long time, he recalled, even when his father, Pat Brown, was governor in the 1960s.

"People were lingering in prisons and didn't know when they were going to get out," he said. "Racial minorities might be in longer."

Prisoners, the governor continued, were compelled "to mouth certain words" to demonstrate their readiness for freedom. White parole boards seemed to be "trying to get the prisoners to have a certain mentality, messing with their heads. It didn't seem right to me.

"It came to me that if they did the crime, they should do the time. And then get out."

That became many legislators' attitude: The whole system was arbitrary and unfair — sometimes political and racial.

What else could you expect from sentences so broad? For example, one to 14 years or five to life.

Republican Sen. John Negedly, a former Contra Costa County district attorney, had sponsored the bill that switched sentences from flexible to more fixed.

"Punishment should be swift, certain and definite," Brown said after signing the measure. But soon he began having second thoughts, mentioning "ambiguities" in the new law.

There was bipartisan criticism.

Then-LAPD Chief Ed Davis, a conservative Republican, planning to run against Brown, complained that prisoners no longer would "have to pay much attention" to guards. Brown "is going to blow these prisons up before I can take over as governor."

State Sen. Alan Sieroty, a liberal Democrat from Los Angeles, feared that fixed sentencing would lead to longer terms. That would only "further brutalize the individual and make his reentry into society less possible."

Both were right.

"Liberals thought the Legislature would jack up the sentences, which it did," Brown told me. "And it never stopped. I never imagined there'd be thousands of [increased sentencing] laws and enhancements."

State government embarked on a prison-building, lock-em-up binge. There was a political stampede in the 1990s after the L.A. riots and the gripping kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Voters and the Legislature passed "three strikes and you're out" — meaning you're "in" for life.

When Brown was governor the first time, there were 21,000 inmates in state custody. By the time he returned in 2011, the number had ballooned to 170,000 — packed like sardines into bunks and sleeping on cots in gymnasiums. At one point, taxpayers were spending more on prisoners than on college kids.

Prisoners-rights groups sued. A federal judicial panel ordered the state to knock it off. Voters and the governor got the message.

The California electorate softened three-strikes and other sentencing laws. Brown, through what he calls "realignment," began shifting control of low-level felons to the counties.

The state prison population is now down to 127,000.

Brown has wanted to eliminate determinate sentencing for years — calling it an "abysmal failure" in 2003 — but said he first needed to achieve realignment and form a political coalition.

"If I'd done it right out of the box, I might have made mistakes," he told me.

Brown added that he'd also been pretty busy.

"No one has done more than I have," he said, listing such things as pension reform, water programs and fighting climate change. "I haven't been sitting on my ass."

The governor's sentencing proposal is targeted for the November ballot as an initiative. It would affect only inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes. Murderers and rapists, forget it.

A nonviolent felon would need to complete his time for the basic crime. But he could earn credits for good behavior and rehab. And before serving added time for an enhancement — such as gang activity — he could seek parole for being a model prisoner

An "unintended consequence" of the law he signed 40 years ago, Brown told reporters, "was the removal of incentives for inmates to improve themselves, refrain from gang activity, using narcotics, otherwise misbehaving. Because they had a certain [release] date and there was nothing in their control that would give them a reward for turning their lives around."

Why the ballot and not the Legislature? It would require a two-thirds legislative vote, and that's a hassle. And he has $24 million in leftover campaign money begging to be spent.

This reform seems to make sense. The old one did, too — at the time. But this is another time.

The lingo also should change. Junk "determinate" and call it "fixed" or "flexible."

Via: http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-sac-cap-20160201-column.html 

One Homeless Voice Is Heard At LAPD Meeting On Crackdown

Dylan's story is one that many homeless people could tell: emotional problems, school failures and social dysfunction lead to self-medicating with alcohol or drugs.

"I had a good childhood," Dylan insisted. "But once the whole schooling thing started changing, that's where everything got tough."

He's bounced around a lot in the last four years. "But I'm at a good point now, at 26," he said.

He's spent a little time in rehab and done stints in sober-living homes. He's learned to roll with his moods, control his temper and walk away from trouble.

Heroin, he said, numbed the pain he felt when people didn't want him around. When he's sober he's thankful for all the people who've been willing to help at a neighborhood church, where he helps with chores and yardwork and attends weekly Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

He's found a place to sleep outdoors that's cramped but safe and clean. He has a bike, a backpack, a cellphone and a Netflix subscription. He's trying to save for an apartment and would like to enroll in Pierce College this fall.

Still, it's too soon to make this some kind of redemption trope. Living on the streets may have taken an indelible toll.

A few months ago, Dylan found a room for rent on Craigslist that he could afford. He moved in, but left after a few nights. He couldn't sleep inside; it felt hot and claustrophobic and "really crazy," he said.

"Is this some kind of deep psychologically rooted thing? It really shocked me," he said. "I'm going to have to train myself to go back to being a normal person."

Or accept that sleeping outside, in the open air, under the stars is a wonderful thing, when it's a choice not a necessity.

They're tired of side-stepping panhandlers outside the market and letting transients sully their well-kept parks. They're worried about rising crime, fueled by jumps in home burglaries and car break-ins.

That's what drew dozens of Chatsworth residents last week to the LAPD's Neighborhood Watch meeting headlined "The Homeless: A Growing Problem."

Officers blamed the crime surge on transients — reprobates and drug addicts whom cops are trying to round up or run off. In the meantime, they warned, don't keep your garage door open or leave anything in your car.

When they asked for questions, hands shot up: Is it still safe to hike in Stoney Point Park? Are home alarm systems deterrent enough? Can we block off our streets and hire security guards?

The final question came from a tattooed young man with dirt-caked sneakers and grimy hands. "My name is Dylan and I'm homeless," he said. "On nights when I have nowhere to go, where is it OK to sleep?"

I watched two women in the row in front of him reach out and pull their purses closer. The officer with the microphone reminded him that there are plenty of shelters downtown on skid row.

Dylan Fowler, 26, knows that he's part of the problem his suburban neighbors are trying to fix. He's lived on the streets, off and on, for years.

He realizes that locals consider him a nuisance. But Chatsworth is his hometown too.

"I empathize with the people around here," he told me. "I know my dad worked very, very hard for a long time to be able to afford to raise a family here. I can understand the whole thing about being an eyesore.

"But it feels unfair sometimes to be judged constantly. Personally it's just, it's kind of tragic. There are people out there to be afraid of. But I'm not one of them."

After the meeting, I stuck around and talked with Dylan for a while. He's about the same age as my daughters, and went to preschool at the park where they played soccer and basketball.

I found him thoughtful and preternaturally polite. "I make a point to hold doors open for people and make small talk with anybody I pass," he explained. "I'm hoping that just generally people will see me around and know I'm not a problem."

It's important to him that people know he's not a bad guy.

On Sunday, I took him to lunch at a neighborhood deli. He savored a bagel and vegetable omelet as if they were delicacies.

And he talked about the forces that shaped his life.

It sounded to me like he'd spent years feeling that he must be a bad guy.

"I was always a problem child," he began. "I got expelled for the first time in fourth grade." He was the class clown, always causing a ruckus, tipping over desks and tormenting teachers.

By the time he was 14, he'd been suspended so often for fighting that "they ran out of schools to send me to," he said. He landed in a Texas program for teens with emotional problems and left there two years later with a diagnosis of depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Back in Chatsworth, he became a loner.

He tried other schools geared toward troubled kids, but they didn't work out. "I realized I had no idea how to deal with normal people," he said. When he turned 18, his parents told him "it was time to get out on my own and figure things out."

He worked odd jobs and rented an apartment with a girlfriend. Then he found out that his mental health issues qualified him for federal disability payments of $850 a month.

Those checks allow many homeless people to eke out a subsistence living. But Dylan said they handicapped him: "It totally makes you lazy. It's not enough to live on.... And you can't take a job or your benefits will end."

But what really handicapped him was heroin.

At 22, he was introduced to the drug by an acquaintance. "He told us we were smoking hash," Dylan said. "Pretty much everyone I knew in the whole Valley got caught up in that problem.

"I was struggling with it for a really long time. That has a lot to do with why I ended up on the street."

Dylan's story is one that many homeless people could tell: emotional problems, school failures and social dysfunction lead to self-medicating with alcohol or drugs.

"I had a good childhood," Dylan insisted. "But once the whole schooling thing started changing, that's where everything got tough."

He's bounced around a lot in the last four years. "But I'm at a good point now, at 26," he said.

He's spent a little time in rehab and done stints in sober-living homes. He's learned to roll with his moods, control his temper and walk away from trouble.

Heroin, he said, numbed the pain he felt when people didn't want him around. When he's sober he's thankful for all the people who've been willing to help at a neighborhood church, where he helps with chores and yardwork and attends weekly Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

He's found a place to sleep outdoors that's cramped but safe and clean. He has a bike, a backpack, a cellphone and a Netflix subscription. He's trying to save for an apartment and would like to enroll in Pierce College this fall.

Still, it's too soon to make this some kind of redemption trope. Living on the streets may have taken an indelible toll.

A few months ago, Dylan found a room for rent on Craigslist that he could afford. He moved in, but left after a few nights. He couldn't sleep inside; it felt hot and claustrophobic and "really crazy," he said.

"Is this some kind of deep psychologically rooted thing? It really shocked me," he said. "I'm going to have to train myself to go back to being a normal person."

Or accept that sleeping outside, in the open air, under the stars is a wonderful thing, when it's a choice not a necessity.


Via: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0630-banks-valley-homeless-20150630-column.html