Category Archives: prison realignment

More Evidence of Rising Crime Under Realignment

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By Michael Rushford

cuffsWith the recent FBI release of preliminary crime statistics for the first six months of 2012, and continuing reports on local crime from news organizations and police agencies across the state, it is becoming increasingly clear that something happened in California last year that caused a sharp increase in virtually every major category of crime.  The FBI report found a small increase nationally in violent and property crime driven by larger increases in the West.  Since the sweeping changes in sentencing under Governor Jerry Brown’s Public Safety Realignment law took effect in October 2011, the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has been monitoring criminal activity across the state to gauge the law’s effect on public safety.

 

While the reports we have collected from local law enforcement agencies over the past year and the recent preliminary report from the FBI are not proof of a trend, they do show a large and abrupt, across-the-board increase in California crime rates which is disturbing.

 

The Criminal Justice League Foundation noted that, in a January 28, 2013 report, researchers at the University of Minnesota identified a downward national trend in crime, citing better technology and changing social dynamics.  In December, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg boasted that his city’s declining incarceration rate and improved policing had caused a dramatic decrease in major felonies.

FBI Preliminary Semi-Annual Uniform Crime Report

FBI Preliminary Semi-Annual Uniform Crime Report

The recent FBI report tells a different story.  Over the first six months of 2012, violent crime in New York City increased by 3.9% and property crime climbed 6.1%.  But not all large states saw increases, Florida and Texas, both of which have reduced some incarceration rates but maintain tough-on-crime sentencing policies, saw only slight increases or declining rates.  States which have been more aggressive at reducing the incarceration of felons, particularly along the West Coast have reversed the trend of reduced crime in recent years and saw rising rates of both violent and property crimes.

 

California’s increase has been the most dramatic.  The FBI report for 2011 had crime dropping in all categories compared to the previous year.  The preliminary report for 2012 shows significant increases.  In a February 3, 2013 Pasadena Star-News story, the Police Chiefs of Pasadena, Glendale, and Covina expressed their concerns about rising crime caused by Realignment.  “This is a dangerous public policy,” Glendale Police Chief Brian De Pompa told reporters.  “Without strong state prison accountability, it’s hard to control crime.”

 

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon disagrees.  His city has embraced the evidence-based rehabilitation and probation approach to most felons, an approach praised by the ACLU.  In a January 19, 2013 Los Angeles Daily News story, Gascon said, “I know that we cannot incarcerate our way out of this problem.”  Unfortunately, according to a January Associated Press story, the homicide rate in San Francisco increased by 36% last year, and the trend is continuing.  On January 1, 2013, documented gang member David Morales, 19, allegedly killed two people while being pursued by police in San Francisco.  Morales is suspected of having driven through a housing complex and shooting at three men.  Police matched the description of the vehicle involved in the shooting to Morales’s car.  Officers then tried to pull him over.  In the ensuing high-speed chase, Morales rammed into a car at an intersection and sent it spinning into a pedestrian.  Both the passenger of the car, 29-year-old Silvia Tuncun, and the pedestrian, 26-year-old Francisco Gutierrez, were killed.  Morales’s most recent conviction was in April 2012 for gang activity which, under Realignment, left him free on probation at the time of the killings .

 

Something happened in California last year that has caused a major shift in crime rates. Excuses by supporters of the Governor’s Realignment are of little comfort to Californians who have lost friends or loved ones to so-called ‘low-level’ felons left in our communities because of this dangerous law.

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AB 109: California’s Felon Dump

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As a result of a lawsuit brought by inmates of California State prisons, the United States Supreme Court ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates over a three-year period of time. In response the California State Legislature passed The Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 (AB 109). The goal of AB 109 was to transfer responsibility for incarceration and supervision of certain non-violent, low-risk offenders from the State to its 58 counties. This month marks the one-year anniversary of the implementation of AB 109, but it is nothing to celebrate.

Lisa Gilvary’s daughter Katie Lung

Up and down the state, the release of so-called  non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual, “low-risk” inmates has been marked by dozens of reports of murders, rapes, attempted murder, kidnapping, stabbing and other crimes committed by inmates released early at the county levels as a result of AB 109.

 

Accused killer Michael Cockrell

On Monday, September 10, 2012, 26-year-old Michael Cockrell repeatedly stabbed Lisa Gilvary, 46, and her roommate, Jennifer Gonzalez, 20, during the course of a home invasion burglary. He then laid in wait and viscously attacked Fresno police officer Jonathan Linzey, 32, when he came to their aid. Ms. Gilvary died at the scene and Cockrell is now facing a possible death sentence. In March 2012, Cockrell was released from prison after serving only six-months of a three-year sentence under AB 109.

 

The state says that AB 109 only applies to ‘low risk” offenders, so it’s okay, but Michael Cockrell was considered a “low risk” offender! I can assure you that the State and I have very different definitions of “low risk.” It’s no wonder AB 109 has been called an abysmal failure, a disaster, and a deception that is dumping dangerous felons at our doorsteps.

 

In Lancaster, more than 300 offenders were released under partial supervision to Los Angeles probation officers since Realignment began.  Nearly 200 of these offenders have been rearrested for new crimes or charges.

 

Redding Police Chief Robert Paoletti “expressed frustration with the lack of jail space, which has resulted in early releases and created the perception of a revolving door at the jail.  Failure to appear warrants totaled 4,569 in the first six months of the year, a 32 percent increase from last year, when there were 3,453.” 

 

The California legislature needs to repeal AB 109.  The State needs to drastically reduce the type of offenders it allows to be shifted to the county level.  The state must take an inmates or parolees criminal history into consideration when determining who is eligible for AB 109. County jails are simply not equipped to handle many of the dangerous, repeat offenders AB 109 has sent them. Nor should we, as parents, have to worry about these same dangerous criminals being released early from overcrowded jails into our neighborhoods.

 

Crime exacts a heavy toll: on government, on society as a whole, but especially on victims. The cost of crime has three dimensions: a dollar amount calculated by adding up property losses, productivity losses, and medical bills. An amount less easily quantifiable includes the forms of pain, emotional trauma, and risk of death from victimization. And finally a dimension that cannot be quantified – the loss of life, and the trickle-down effect of extreme trauma or even death on the families of victims, their friends and communities held hostage by the threat of fear.

 

In 1996 the National Institute of Justice calculated the cost of crime. A single murder costs society $2,940,000, a rape at $86,500, and a robbery with injury at $19,000.  Make no mistake: this is a crime tax that we all pay into one way or another.

 

A fundamental duty of government is to protect society, to ensure that we walk safe streets and that the weak among us are not threatened by fear, intimidation and violence. Every time that a ‘so called’ nonviolent felon who has been released onto the streets commits an act of violence government has failed in that duty. When our government turns its back on the fundamental duty to protect innocent citizens, its skewed priorities must be revealed and it must be held accountable for its actions.

 

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