What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Why the D.A. Race Really Matters (and why you should vote for George Gascon)
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One of the most high-profile races on the ballot is the one for Los Angeles County District Attorney, where incumbent George Gascon – a progressive reformer – is being challenged by a large field of candidates.
What does a District Attorney really do? How does the position impact criminal justice? How much does it impact crime, and in what ways? And what is a progressive prosecutor? Why is reform needed and what does it look like? In this episode, we talk about that and more, including why it important – crucial even – to re-elect George Gascon.
Mike talks with Marissa Roy, the podcast’s resident legal analyst, as well as Tracee Porter, who has been through the criminal justice system, and talks about what harms it caused her, and the rest of society.
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of What's Next Los Angeles? I'm Mike Bonin. Thank you for joining me. One of the most high-profile races on the ballot right now is the one for Los Angeles County District Attorney. That's where incumbent George Gascone, a progressive reformer, is being challenged by a large field of candidates. So, what does a district attorney really do? How does the position impact criminal justice? How much does it impact crime, and in what ways? And what is a progressive prosecutor? Why is reform so needed, and what does it look like? In this episode, we're going to talk about that and a lot more, including why it is important, crucial even, I would argue, to re-elect George Gascone. I talk on today's podcast with our sort of resident legal analyst, as well as with someone who has been through the criminal justice system, and we'll talk about what harms it caused her and what harms it causes the rest of society, be two very different perspectives on the issue. So I am really grateful to have two amazing guests, both friends of mine, with us today. And I will let them introduce themselves. Marissa, you have been on the show before. Why don't you go ahead?
SPEAKER_00Hi, everybody. And Mike, thanks for having me again. My name is Marissa Roy. She, her pronouns. I am a civil rights attorney based in downtown Los Angeles. Um, and I've been engaged in a lot of criminal justice reform efforts, and I'm excited to bring the legal perspective today.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. And Tracy? Hey, hey, y'all. My name is Tracy Porter. She, her um pronouns. I am a second-generation Angelino small business owner, but mostly a justice impacted person.
SPEAKER_03All right. And for people who don't understand what the term justice impacted means, um, without going into too much detail that you don't want to get into, uh, explain what justice impacted means.
SPEAKER_01A justice-impacted person is somebody that has either been um has been adversely affected by the judicial system in the state of California or any place in the country. I unfortunately, it was on the other side of it. I was convicted of a felony, so I really understand what is why these erases are really important.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. Well, thank you both for being here. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say about the race. Uh, first of all, let me ask Marissa, as our resident lawyer and scholar, uh, you're you're really of counsel to what's next, Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00You're I do have to have the disclaimer that I am technically not providing any legal advice to anyone. This is just legal information.
SPEAKER_03As if to illustrate my point. So uh if uh why don't you tell us what does a district attorney does?
SPEAKER_00So a district attorney is responsible for all of the criminal prosecutions in a county. Um now, LA County has the largest district attorney's office in the entire country. Um, and so what the LA district attorney is responsible for is the prosecution of all felonies and most misdemeanors, because the LA City attorney handles the misdemeanors in the city of LA, but there are 88 cities in the county of Los Angeles. So the misdemeanors for all of the other cities would be prosecuted by the district attorney's office. Now, uh felonies are generally more severe crimes. Um, some involve uh violence, or they might involve property uh that is over a certain threshold amount. I believe it's $900. I also have to say I'm a civil attorney, so um that disclaimer. Um, and then misdemeanors are generally seen as more uh petty or minor crimes, sometimes quality of life crimes, trespass, public intoxication, um, those sorts of things. And then the district attorney's office also has the power under California law to prosecute under California's unfair competition law any business for engaging in any unlawful, unfair, or deceptive conduct. Uh, city attorneys can do some city attorneys and the attorney general can do that in a civil capacity, but the district attorney can also do that in a criminal capacity. And so the LA District Attorney's Office prosecutes more than uh 71,000 felonies and 110,000 misdemeanors every year. Um, so again, a huge caseload, extraordinarily important office.
SPEAKER_03That's a huge amount, over 71,000. And the district attorney's office has the latitude to decide which cases get prosecuted and what sort of penalties to seek, right?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So that's it's important to also understand the amount of discretion that's in the role. We call it prosecutorial discretion. It's been a feature of prosecutors' offices since you know pre-colonial times. Um, and basically what it means is that the prosecutors, who are the people who have the facts of the case, are able to exercise discretion at so many levels. They can decide whether or not to charge a case, to bring charges or not. Um, they might decide that certain charges are more applicable or appropriate for what's called diversion, where maybe incarceration is not the right response. So we need to route people towards services to address the root causes of whatever the incident was. Um, there also can be a decide decision not to prosecute if the evidence is weak or if prosecution would actually be against the interests of justice. Um, then even if there is a decision to prosecute, the district attorney, represented in court by uh hundreds of deputy district attorneys, who are kind of the line attorneys of the office, get to make decisions as to what sentences they request, what charges they decide to push forward. Maybe there are three potential charges, but only one has strong evidence behind it. Um, and they're making these discretionary decisions that can affect the outcome of the case throughout the entire life of the case. Um, and often what they request is uh respected by judge. If they decide to request cash bail or not, if they decide to request a heightened sentence or not, they get to make those decisions from the bail process all the way through to sentencing.
SPEAKER_03And, you know, I've been watching over the past few weeks a documentary series about Larry Krasner, the district attorney in Philadelphia. And one of the things that struck me there, and I imagine it's true here too, is that most cases wind up not most cases, even when somebody is convicted, winds up not going to trial, but the result of a plea deal. Exactly. And that how how a district attorney handles a plea deal outside of the public view, outside of sort of the public proceedings, really has a significant impact on who winds up spending a long time or a short time behind bars.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And this is where I think we have to think about it from the human perspective, because a plea deal essentially is when a prosecutor says, okay, uh, if you plead guilty, then we'll give you just this reduced sentence, or maybe you just have probation and you're not going to have to deal with any incarceration. If you pair that uh with cash bail, think about someone who has uh maybe a minor misdemeanor. Maybe they have been uh brought in because they didn't pay a few traffic tickets. And then the uh the prosecutors were is requesting $10,000 cash bail. Now, I don't know about you. I do not have that. Rent is too darn high for me to have that in my bank account. Um, and if you can't pay that cash bail, then you're going to be incarcerated in what's called pretrial detention. So that means before there's ever been a verdict of innocent or guilty, you are incarcerated. And depending on how long, it could mean you lose your job, if your work is not understanding, it could mean if you're a single parent, you lose custody of your kids and maybe they're going into foster care. So that decision of if you can't afford that becomes really monumental. And then you have this prosecutor say, well, but if you just plea guilty, you can you can have probation. Many people, even if they could fight the case just out of practical circumstances, very understandably might take the plea just again, so they don't have an interruption in their job, in their benefits. But then that also is a criminal record that could interfere with their ability to get a job, to get housing, to get benefits. So you you start to see how these things might sound very neutral, um, but they have deeply human impacts.
SPEAKER_03And and Tracy, talk a little bit more about the human impact, about how the justice system or the system that doesn't meet justice actually impacts people who've been through the system.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, in 1998, um I got a notice from the district attorney's office telling me to come to the DA's office. Now, I've never been in trouble. I had no idea, and I'm thinking a lot of the whole law and order thing, thinking, you know, I'm nothing's no big deal. I haven't done anything. And I was being charged with welfare fraud. Um again, I had no idea what was going on really because I've never been involved with the criminal justice system or injustice system, however you want to put it. So I fought the case back and forth, back and forth over about a year. Finally, my public defender tells me, Well, uh, you did this, which I hadn't done. I the bottom line is I worked, yes, I did, but I reported my income like I was supposed to, and the county overpaid me. And instead of just saying, Well, Miss Porter, pay us back, I got, you know, I had the choice of either taking a plea, like Marissa was saying, or go to jail.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Or and not even thinking about fighting the case. Because if I, you know, hindsight being 2020, if I had known then what I know now, I would have fought. But I had a 10-year-old son, I was a single mom, and what was I gonna do? I took the deal. But I think the worst part about the whole situation was I hadn't been on the county in like five years. I had a really good job. I was um working at a uh a company that was doing incredibly well. I was making in 1990s money $45,000 a year without a college degree. So instead of just saying, you know, pay this money back, they just convicted me of, and I took the deal not knowing the repercussions, not understanding that um I am now a convicted felon. So because, and I was a book, full charge bookkeeper, office manager, and a tax prepayer, couldn't do any of those things anymore because I have a felony. I didn't realize at the time that I gave up my right to vote. And being a black woman, I know my you know, my elders and ancestors fought fought, led, and died for me for the right for me to vote. And I did not realize at that time that I had given up my right to vote. And then you want me to pay this money back. On top of the fact, after losing my job, I had to go back on the county. And so I'm like, So what this good does this do? So they gave me like five years probation and some crazy amount of community service hours, like 500 hours or what have you. And I'm like, okay, I'll do what I can do. And the the probation officer said, We know you can't pay this money back. Of course, you can't pay the money back because you're a convicted felon. But every time I made some money, I did what I reported, I I gave I gave them money and all this. So five years later, I go back to court thinking I'm gonna get off of probation. This was 2004. Long story short, they gave me five more years probation. And that's when you were talking about the discretion that that these DAs have, and not only the DAs, but the judges. And come to find out later on that really I should have only have gotten two years. If anything, if they even decided to prosecute, I should have only gotten two years of probation at the most. But I spent so basically I had 10 years of probation for I think I think I owed the county maybe six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_03And your story is not all that uncommon. And because your story isn't all that uncommon, uh over the past decade or so, there's been a a real movement. The movement's been around for longer than that, but there's been a real movement that gained energy to elect reform-minded prosecutors, progressive prosecutors, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, George Gascone here in Los Angeles, Jessa Boudin up in San Francisco. And all of them take a different approach to how they try to implement reforms. On day one, George Gascone, when he took office after being elected four years ago, he came in and at noon on whatever day it was he took office, he announced, okay, here's some big changes that we're gonna do now. Um can you talk us through what some of those key ones are, Marissa?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think what is really important to understand, and I know we'll get to the backlash, but I think it's important that a lot of the reason um for these reform prosecutors um is not just because of a larger recognition that mass incarceration doesn't work, that it hurts black and brown communities, that it is a system of injustice. There's also an additional practicality that it doesn't make our communities safer. Um, the data has shown time and time again, as we've seen these reform prosecutors start to move in, um, that declining to prosecute nonviolent misdemeanors and using diversion that addresses the root causes, that actually reduces recidivism, someone's likelihood to re-offend. And if you reduce recidivism, that means there's less crime and communities are safer. So you have all of these reform-minded prosecutors coming in not as tough on crime candidates, but as smart on crime candidates, thinking about what actually makes communities safer, what actually is a system of justice. And so George Gascon came in day one with um, I think four principal uh big policies. Number one, um, no death penalty. He wasn't going to have any of his prosecutors seek the death penalty, which it's already been suspended in California effectively for many years now. So that wasn't a huge change, but just making it official. Um, that he wasn't going to try uh children as adults. So anyone under 18, just recognizing that the brain doesn't fully develop, uh, frankly, until your early to mid-20s. And so the thought of trying minors for crimes as adults um would be inhumane. Um, it doesn't mean they wouldn't be tried at all, but they would be tried um matching and in parallel to their development as children. Um, number three, um, not requesting cash bail. And again, that came from a recognition that actually LA County has the largest jail population in the country. And about 50% of that jail population is in, again, when I mentioned pretrial detention. That means there's been no verdict. There has been no guilty. Um, so we are incarcerating people who have been presumed innocent because they cannot pay for bail, which is often set at thousands of dollars. Um, and so that recognition is that we're not going to basically hinge the decision of whether someone is incarcerated on whether they can pay for bail or not. If there is a reason that this person could be seen as a threat to the community, then the question will be do we request bail or not, or do we just incarcerate? But the question of bail hinging on the amount of money or someone's income, that was something that George Gascoin moved to get rid of. Um, and then the fourth thing that is currently caught up in some litigation in the California Supreme Court is really reform on whether uh the office would be seeking three strike sentencing enhancements. So decades ago, there was a proposition that essentially said uh the three strikes law that on a third felony conviction, you could seek life. And what it has actually led to is many people who have never committed a violent crime getting life sentences. Um, and it has been extraordinarily harmful to communities. And so it doesn't mean that someone doesn't get a sentence on a third offense, but it means that that sentence doesn't necessarily need to be life. Um now that is getting litigated all the way through the Supreme Court. Um, and we can talk again about the backlash that motivates that litigation and other moves. But all of these um were, again, relatively reasonable. And if you look at kind of how Gascon has performed over his three years, he's really taken this smart on crime philosophy of none of this means that the DA's office is going to stop focusing on crime, but it means that they're not going to use the criminal justice system to harm communities, that it's not going to use the criminal justice system to disproportionately affect people who can't uh afford cash bail, that we're not going to use it against minors who haven't developed yet. Um, and felony filing rates over the last three years in George Gascon's office have actually been pretty uh stable with his predecessors, but misdemeanor filing rates have gone down. Again, moving some of those more petty uh crimes into diversion and addiction-related misdemeanors in particular, those filing rates have dropped significantly, which makes a lot of sense with his philosophy of why would you criminalize someone who is dealing with addiction, who is dealing with essentially a public health issue? Why don't we give them and route them to the health services they need? And so this is the encapsulation of his philosophy, his four big programs, um, and how they've actually really impacted what he's done. And again, it hasn't changed felony rates, it hasn't changed how the office prioritizes the most violent crimes, the type that we do need to keep our community safe, but it has affected how the office approaches the offenses where people are getting caught up and need help.
SPEAKER_03And I think when it comes to the discussion of the no-cash bail, when it comes to the discussion of three strikes, when it comes to the discussion of the these misdemeanor prosecutions for things like uh drugs, you can't have this conversation without talking about poverty and race. Um because just looking at the the the misdemeanor situation, for instance, you know, i if if there's a wealthy white kid from you know Malibu who gets who happens to get arrested, well, it's less likely he's gonna get arrested than a black kid, but if he gets arrested, he's gonna almost certainly wind up in a diversion program. But we don't see that happening uh with with people who don't have income, and particularly communities of color. And we know that three strikes was disproportionately impacting communities of color, particularly the black community, or whole generation of black men during the war on drugs was uh tossed in jail. And bail clearly impacts people based on whether or not they have an ability to pay. I I often think folks don't really think through how the bail system works. They tend to think you're letting somebody who's guilty out without bail, right? It this is somebody who hasn't been convicted of anything. Yep, it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's the thing. We have this tenet in American, you know, not just law in our democracy, that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but that's it's really not what actually happens. Um, the fact that most um most criminal offenses uh are settled on a plea instead of trial, the fact that 50% of our current LA population is in pretrial detention, that means a whole 50% of people have not been convicted. Um That's insane. It's insane. Well, the median, I just pulled it out because I had to get it right. It's a 48%. But uh the median bail amount is set at $235,000. Um, the median household income in Los Angeles County is $76,000. So people are not going to be able to pay that. Um, and it is important to note it, of course, note the racial justice implication because although black people make up only 8% of LA County's population, you're 29% of the county's jail population.
SPEAKER_01That part. And you know, to your point about cash bail, um disproportionately affecting black people, it definitely has a uh disproportionate effect on the tenuous black wealth. Because most people, if I mean unfortunate black people who have a family member or themselves are find themselves in a situation where they need to get bail money, they put their homes up for bail. And I can speak to this. My great-grandmother lost her home because of the hell cash bail, which is again um a system that is, I didn't realize it, that is completely unregulated. And you're like, wait, so you have a bunch of people, you know, and they they they make their money on people not showing up for um court and they don't they they have no um idea. It's just it's just more things that uh shows just how unfortunately um how racist this country is, especially when it comes to criminal reform and justice, when you have people who lose their homes to try to keep a family member out of jail, as you said, who hasn't even been convicted of a crime. They're just Just like anybody else, have you know, last time I checked? Guilty. I mean, oh I'm sorry, innocent until proven guilty. Then I say guilty until proven innocent. I that was a slip.
SPEAKER_03And that's an individual situation with your great-grandmother. That individual situation multiplied exponentially. Talk if you can about what the the impact is on entire communities of that.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's, I mean, just from my lived life experience, I am a person of a certain age. Okay, hell, I'm 57 years old. So again, like I said, I'm a second-generation Angelino. And I've seen what happened from I was born in 1966, so 1979, you know, 13, and we're sliding into, you know, I'm old enough to remember in South LA the factories and strong, well-paying blue-collar jobs. And then as those jobs went away overseas or just to other suburbs or areas, then you then you, you know, so all these people lost their jobs, and then you had the recessions and all these other things, and then the crack cocaine epidemic. So it was a perfect storm. And then you had all these black people freaking out, my family included, about what are we going to do about the war on drugs and you know, being happy about three strikes, and and because they felt that it was something that was helping to save our going to save our communities, because we couldn't do anything. And you know, we can't have the conversation on how the roar and drugs and the crack cocaine epidemic, how that actually started, but we won't go there. But we know, like you said, a whole generation of black men, and then later on, black women, because I'm the got caught up in that, you know, especially with the crack epidemic. A lot of women, you know, did things, got hooked on drugs, did things that did not, you know, that they would not have done otherwise. But instead of getting the help that they needed, unlike, you know, with the opioid epid epidemic, because that mostly helped affected white women, we didn't get the same diversions, we didn't get the drug treatments. It was we we were criminalized and we went to jail. And so I watched family members, I watched my grandmother get crooked on cocaine crack cocaine. I watched entire communities just gone because of crack cocaine, and because of the you know, the battering rams and all these things to I bear I bore witness to this. And I just think about the fact had this started happening on the west side, on Beverly, in Beverly Hills, West Lake, it would have been a whole different conversation. But to watch people lose their homes, or the like what was it when they were taking the seizures, when they were literally taking people's homes, and because they thought there was no proof. They just said, Well, you obviously you're black and you have a nice house and you have a nice car, so obviously you're a drug dealer. No proof whatsoever. And they had the the power to take the seize people. It's another thing with the tenuous nature of black wealth. So it's like, come on, y'all. At what point do we have that point where people are like, you know, this this stuff is this is not right. Uh this is really crazy, and we should stop this. And this is why, again, we go back to how important it is to have certain kind of DAs in office because they don't do stuff like that, especially when it comes to progressive and reform-minded DAs.
SPEAKER_03And so much of what you just discussed, when you talk about a generation of black men who wound up in the system and then a generation of black women, that also means there's a generation of kids who grew up without a at least at least one parent, a generation of kids who grew up with the family income severely impacted, a generation of kids who grew up, you know, housing insecure, often turned out on the streets, a generation of kids who wound up in the foster system and then wound up in this own this perpetuating cycle of sort of school to to to prison pipeline. You were about to say something, Marcel?
SPEAKER_00I I was just, you know, at hearing you speak, it just, I hope people appreciate the amount that a district attorney regime can have a destabilizing impact on communities. And I think Mike, you put it really well for generations to come. So when we're thinking about this role, um, and you know, you think about the cut and dry, okay, it's it's making, it's prosecuting felonies, it's it's so much more because the choices and the discretion you exercise has the ability to upset uh generations, to uh impede racial justice, to impact the ability of people to get wealth equitably. Like it it destabilizes entire communities when you make these irresponsible prosecuting decisions.
SPEAKER_03And ridiculously expensive, right? If if you calculate how much the state or the county pays for all the people in pretrial detention, not only is that a loss of income to those families that that have somebody who's in pretrial detention, but it's a huge cost to the state. Money that could be better spent reinvested into communities and helping improve neighborhoods, helping support families, helping increase economic development and provide more jobs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, every year LA County spends over $1 billion to uh incarcerate people. And just to kind of put some numbers to what you were saying, too, um, think about some of these addiction-related offenses, for example. So to incarcerate a person with serious mental health issues, that costs on average about $548 a day, whereas providing community-based housing and treatment would cost $207 a day. So not only is this better for communities, better for the individual, reduces recidivism and makes communities safer, it's also more economically efficient. There really is no argument for going forward with just indiscriminate, tough on crime policies. That's why the smart on crime, compassionate, thoughtful approach, racial justice-minded approach of reform prosecutors is better for everyone.
SPEAKER_03I want the those numbers to hang in the air for a second. What were those two per day figures again?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Incarcerating a person with serious mental health issues would cost on average $400 uh $548 a day. And if you just provided community-based housing and treatment, that would cost on average $207 a day. So more than half less.
SPEAKER_03And, you know, once again, in this election, voters are being asked to approve money or approve money and how it's allocated for mental health care, right? We never have to go to the ballot to ask for more money for jails. We never have to go to the ballot to ask for more money, like stuff like that. That's always, always baked in. And that money could be a billion dollars, could be redirected uh and could be changing lives. Could be changing lives. Despite this being economical, despite this being smart, despite this being compassionate, there's been uh a little backlash, huh? Just a teeny meety bit. I mean, it's been it's been, I mean, incredible, incredible uh backlash from from the get-go with with every progressive prosecutor. You know, uh they they succeeded in repealing or in recalling uh Chessa in in San Francisco. Uh they tried uh a couple times, I think, to repeal Krasner in in Philadelphia, where the police union was calling for his head, you know, from day one. They were working on a recall Gascon here in Los Angeles, I think even before he was sworn in.
SPEAKER_00I think it failed twice, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It did. Uh but all of those things have a have a strategic value because it means there's an ongoing funded campaign against progressive prosecutors all the time. So that as they're trying to do their job, they don't have the bandwidth to also be doing the narrative and the politics and and the explaining what the hell they're trying to do. But uh let's talk a little bit about the backlash and what it's been about here in Los Angeles County and the ways in which it's it's based on bullshit.
SPEAKER_01Well, for me, it's listening to especially the backlash when it comes to you know the no cash bell, um, especially for people. Well, well, brooka brooka brooga. If you let these people out, they're gonna offend again. Well, first of all, they haven't even been tried. So you don't even know if they actually did the crime that they're accused of. How about that? Again, that whole innocent till proven guilty. And when you have a certain set of people whose whole thing is about law and order and tough on crime, which that tough on crime basically usually means, well, it always means throw more black and brown folks in jail. And when you have people who just by black and brown people being in their spaces, they don't like it. And they want it to stop, and they want controls over these places. And as I like I said, I'm a black woman who, if I'm in certain spaces, they don't like it. And I'm not a if unless I tell you that I have a I'm a convicted felon, who's gonna know I'm a I'm a soon to be 58-year-old overweight black woman. What at what point am I a threat? But my just my being in certain spaces makes people uncomfortable. And so to get that control, it's so much easier for people to corral and control black and brown bodies. So when you have people in office like George Gascone, who are like, look, you are putting people in jail who, you know, like you said, they could lose their jobs, they lose their homes, they lose their, you know, their children can go into foster care. And then let's not even go over the nut go into the numbers of how many people, once they even get a whiff of the criminal injustice. I mean, I keep saying injustice system, criminal justice system, trying to get their children back from the county, especially if they're black or brown. So just the fact that people they have this preconceived notion of what black and brown people are, that we're criminals, uh, that we have too many babies, that especially if they're you know refugees or immigrants, well, they're coming here to take our jobs. And if they do anything wrong, even if they cross the street wrong, they are automatically criminals. And it's that that uh preconceived confirmation, and then when they see somebody being accused of a crime, well, that's confirmation bias. Well, of course they're that way. So then they need to be in jail to keep them from reaffiting to doing anything else because we as people who I will say non-melanated folks or melanin deficient, they have to feel safe. And by some people feeling safe, that means people who look like me have to be kept away from those people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think what is is really important to contextualize this conversation and the backlash is that the criminal justice system, really in its modern form and mass incarceration, started with the abolition of slavery. It became the way to perpetuate um racial uh discrimination, um, particularly against Black Americans, um, but against many communities of color. And so, as mass incarceration um has been now the biggest driver, well, one of the biggest drivers of racial discrimination, you have these reform prosecutors who are pushing policies that on any practical level, whether it's public safety, whether it's economic, these reforms make sense. So the backlash isn't motivated by real economic concerns, it isn't motivated by real practical concerns. Um, this idea of tough on crime, you cannot extricate it from racial bias.
SPEAKER_01You cannot.
SPEAKER_00And that's what's really important to understand. And it's also important to understand how many private interests are in this space. When we think about private prisons, private immigration forces, the many layers of law enforcement unions that are invested in a status quo. When you think of the amount of the county budget, the city budget that goes toward incarceration, there are many, many levels of actors that are deeply invested in this system saying the same. So when you have someone uh like George Gascone, I think what is so difficult about the backlash is you aren't fighting with practical narratives. You aren't fighting with facts, you're fighting against bias, you're fighting against deep money and self-interest. And it has led to um a really ugly sort of backlash where you're not having a conversation based on facts, you're having conversations where you're really seeing how people's biases are motivating their feelings. Um, and that is, I think, what has been so uh difficult uh about about watching this all happen. And then watching certainly not just George Gascone, but George Gascone, Larry Krasner, um, Chase of Boudin become targets and be the few people that have to fight this overwhelming backlash.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there are there are such competing narratives. The LA Times endorsed Gascone and uh put it pretty succinctly, voters wanted Gascone to set a corrective course in the nation's largest local jurisdiction while keeping people safe. He's doing what he promised and doing it well, despite intense and dishonest backlash from opponents inside his office and among right-wing politicians and pundits across the nation. LA County voters would be wise to reject the nonsense and keep Gascogne on the job and criminal justice reform in place. That contrasts sharply with just looking here, I have the Recall Gascone website up, uh, which is sort of, I think, the messaging Bible for many of the campaigns against Gascone. As soon as he was sworn into office, District Attorney George Gascone began issuing directives to his prosecutors instructing them to go soft on crime, coddle criminals, and trample upon the dignity and rights of crime victims.
SPEAKER_00Oh God. It's hard to take it, it's hard to take that seriously, honestly, but but it is how people I think are are feeling. There was a great article in the LA Times. I just I loved the headline where it was it was essentially uh violent crime is dropping across the county. So why do we feel less safe? Um, and it's because these actors who are so deeply invested in the criminal justice system are peddling these narratives, motivated by self-interest and bias, but also I think playing on general misconceptions that tough on crime makes us safer when it really doesn't. Smart on crime can make us safer, uh, can save us money, but not just indiscriminate tough on crime. We've seen after many decades now that just that just hurts all our communities and especially our our black and brown communities.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I mean the money that is being put into these campaigns against George Gascon and other progressive candidates. Um, it's it never ceases to amaze me. I never forget when I went back to school and I took Polly Sai, and we were talking about propositions and and you know, campaign ads, and these things are written just so we can't understand them. Uh but he said, This is what you do. You just go all the way down to the bottom and see who's the where the money's coming from. Always follow the money.
SPEAKER_03Oh, sure.
SPEAKER_01And so when it comes to these attack ads against George Gascone, let's see, you know, who are who's sponsoring these attack ads? Is it, I don't know, maybe Bell people, maybe you know, people that like private prisons, uh who benefits from the fear mongering that, you know, and this is nothing new. This has been going on since, like you said, the abolition of slavery. Even with you know, the 13th amendment, you said, you know, we were supposed, yeah, we free. But there's a little colour exemption, you know that the little exemption that a lot of people don't even didn't even realize myself included until I went back to school about you know what you can if people men that they imprison men because for loitering. Now you just freed a bunch of folk and where are they gonna go? So it's like, okay, so now we're gonna get to throw them in jail, you know, and so just so, and that's the beginning of the mass incarceration of black bodies, especially black men, and you have the chain gains and uh and prison labor and all these things. And it's you know, that was part of the constitution, and it is just so many laws have been written to control mostly black bodies, but you know, by default, other people, you know, as more you know, round folks can start coming into the country. But bottom line is who benefits? That's how you got to ask yourself who benefits from these laws? Who benefits from keeping you know people like George Gascone out of office or kicking him out of office? Where is the follow the money and see really who's benefiting from these things?
SPEAKER_03Well, and part and part of the the challenge for progressive prosecutors is trying to interject a conversation about data and science and how you actually solve a problem into an overwhelming narrative that not only is funded in the ways you just described, but also benefits from the mass media narrative, right? There is a what is it, a 30-year franchise now of three or four different law and order series? Yes. Right? There's not a lot of series about healing communities, but there's lots of series about punishing communities, right? There are countless shows about prosecutors. Has there been a show about a public defender righting the wrongs of people who are being screwed by the system? I don't it maybe, but I don't remember it, right? But but there's plenty of prosecutor shows.
SPEAKER_00As a rule, I do not watch lawyer shows. I have enough in my daytime. I can't I can only imagine.
SPEAKER_01But even like what Mike was pointing out about these, somebody called it copaganda. Yeah. And when I heard that, I'm like, oh, that sounds that's you know, that's perfect. But even in those shows, there's always the dogged public defender. One of my favorites in Law and Order was Shambhala Green, played by the amazing Lorraine Toussaint. And she was all there was always these, the the one public defender that was fight, that would fight for the, you know, the falsely accused, or even if that person maybe had committed the crime, at least fighting for them, though they would not get some draconian sentence. And and in my own case, because like I said, this was like you said, 30 years. And by the time my case came up, law and order had been on for at least eight years or so. And so I thought myself that of course nothing's gonna happen to me because I have a public defender, because I'm thinking this is what it's supposed to be like. This is they're supposed to, they're supposed to listen to me. They're supposed to fight for me. They're not supposed to just say, take the deal or go to jail. And this was my the person that's supposed to be fighting for my rights. So you have this whole misconception because of shows like Law and Order and Perry Mason and all these other shows that, you know, make you think that as long as you are that you did not commit the crime, or maybe you might have done it, but you shouldn't get the the harsh punishment, and then it doesn't happen. It's not true. It's a false narrative. And then you get caught up in something that will you, in my case, takes 25 years to get the justice that I should have gotten in the first place.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I think it's important to understand, too, that public defenders are so underfunded and overworked. Um, in California, you know, the states counties spend about 82% more on prosecutors than they do public defenders. And these are the same people that are on each side of the case. They have similar caseloads. Um, but we favor prosecution. It kind of goes back to this follow the money and where's the money. But I think also um, when we're looking about this narrative, I think that is is what is is difficult about messaging uh properly, what reform prosecution actually is. Because there's a lot of misinformation about what it isn't that is funded by these very moneyed interests, but also funded, I also just kind of plays on people's fears. Um, and there's a lot of this fierce, uh, this false fear-mongering. So, you know, I mentioned violent crime in Los Angeles has gone down, um, but we see extraordinary rates of reporting. Um, and so when you're getting, when you're just getting inundated with these stories, your public, your perception might be that there is more crime or that's everywhere because it's all you're reading about. You don't have a survey on the 10 million people in the county to realize actually we're going down. I think what is is really imperative is we need to start messaging what reform prosecution actually is, what smart on crime policies actually are, um, and start helping people imagine a more compassionate, healing, and restorative system of justice. And effective and effective. And effective, effective, cost effective, and effective that they just haven't seen before.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we we don't have that. I mean, the the right, the sort of pro quote unquote law and order camp does so much better at at messaging, messaging discipline, messaging development. But you know, they they've done an an artful and successful job of of claiming that Gascone is the cause of crime in Los Angeles, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. And I just want to mention um that studies have debunked the idea that the prosecutor has a core like a correlative relationship with crime. Uh, really, what correlates with with crime is is poverty, is housing rates and um, you know, housing instability. We've seen, as I mentioned, crime has violent crime has gone down in LA County. Um, crime went up in the pandemic in Orange County, where they had a tough on crime prosecutor. It really doesn't correlate with who the prosecutor is as much as the underlying root causes of crime, which is why you think you have someone like George Gascone who's trying to reorient our philosophy toward addressing those root causes, you'll make community safer because that's that's what correlates with crime rates. Yeah. Um, but we have this false narrative being pushed that it's all about who is in the prosecutor's office.
SPEAKER_03When it suits the the argument of the other side, right? Because retail crime, burglaries, uh car thefts are up and they pin that on Gascone. Violent crime is down, and nobody says nobody on that side says, oh my God, Gascone is responsible for a drop in crime.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03In San Francisco, where they recalled the progressive prosecutor, crime has gone up, but people aren't saying, oh my God, look at how bad uh uh uh uh Jenkins, is that her name? Rip Jenkins, yeah. Rip Jenkins is is doing in San Francisco. It does, it just doesn't have the the same thing. Uh it's a real, real imbalance. So entering into the fray, into the district attorney's race, there has been a wide field of candidates, uh, most of whom, well, all of whom are all of whom are anti-Gascon because they're challenging Gascone, but most of whom are taking a very, very uh aggressive law and order approach, and a couple of whom are are trying to sort of take that approach but soften their rhetoric on it. So uh the first one we've got is an LA County Deputy District Attorney, John Hatami. Um he says he plans on reversing or erasing Gascognes policies. Uh he's been uh endorsed by the DAs in in Fresno and Kern County, uh cops in Glendale and Beverly Hills. Um he's been one of the folks who is considered, I think, one of the stronger candidates, uh, along with uh Nathan Hawkman, who I guess used to be a federal prosecutor who is pretty intent on reversing or erasing Gascone's policies and has man, some of this shit. He's he's accused Gascone of ushering in, quote, the golden age of criminals.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God.
SPEAKER_03Oh my sweet black baby Jesus, my uh he uh he's running as a no-party preference now, but he ran as a Republican in the state attorney general's race a couple years ago, just just two years ago. He's I think probably the the most right of the candidates, the most clearly Republican in in uh undeclared clothing, I guess, at the moment. He's the one who's backed by Steve Cooley, the the former DA, who a real apostle of these failed so-called law and order strategies that that haven't worked. And then there's there's two other candidates that that maybe we can talk about a little bit more. Uh they are both trying to say that they are reformers, uh, but they are very, very anti-Gascone. Um uh one of them is the was until recently, I guess, the head of the LA County Deputy District Attorneys Association, Eric Siddle. Um, he claims he's gonna run a progressive office that that functions, uh, which is an interesting way of phrasing what he's saying, because then he goes on and he condemns most of the the progressive reforms that that we've just been talking about. His big endorsement, of course, is the LA County Association of Deputy District Attorneys. Uh and then there's the the one that more Democrats, I think, have been looking to is Jeff Chemarinsky. He's the uh son of uh well-known constitutional scholar Erwin Chemarinsky, who is often quoted in the the Times and and in publications nationwide about constitutional law matters. I guess Jeff is a former federal prosecutor, and he has been going around to a lot of the Dem clubs and Democratic Party folks and and claiming that he would be a more effective progressive prosecutor. Uh, and he's gotten you know some support. He's gotten support from uh former council or current council member Bob Blumenfield and from uh LA city attorney Heidi Feldstein Soto.
SPEAKER_00Who has her own scandals that you can listen to in another episode I was on.
SPEAKER_04That part.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I I think what is important to help contextualize these candidates, because when when you're voters, we're getting hit with lots of mailers, rhetoric, putting it all in the recycling bin. Um, but these candidates, particularly the last two, you have the candidates who are running, I guess, and very clearly from the right and are vying for uh who can be more tough on crime, uh, more solicitous to the LA Police Protective League. And then you have people who are trying to find this middle lane of saying they are going to be reform prosecutors, but somehow more practical. And I think it's it's important to remember that all of Gascone's policies have been completely practical. Again, not seeking the death penalty in line with state policy, trying to children as children, not adults, not seeking cash bail when someone uh has not even been convicted of a crime and will help ease the amount of money that we are spending on our mass incarceration system that isn't working. And the rate of felony prosecution has stayed the same, violent crime has gone down. And what he's been working on is transitioning addiction-related misdemeanor offenses toward diversion. All of this is exceedingly practical. I'm not seeing what's not practical about it. Um, and you look at how they portrayed themselves at the different debates and public appearances. So Eric Siddall, uh, head of the LA County uh or former head of the LA County Association of Deputy District Attorneys, it's that association that is currently suing the district attorney's office to try to overturn the policy on three strikes, which we've said is extraordinarily harmful and has been over its 28 years, extraordinarily harmful to communities of color. So that is where he is coming from. That's what his association is trying to dismantle right now. Um, and then you look at uh there was a debate hosted by the police unions where they gave all the candidates paddles to say, you know, what Gascone policies would you undo? And I thought the most interesting one that unfortunately was unanimous and it was attended by these candidates, um, including Jeff Chemarinsky, was reversing Gascone's policy on trying children as adults. And to see all of those panels go up, um, it was just really sad and disheartening. So I'm I'm not sure how someone who wants to try children as adults can call themselves a reform-minded prosecutor. Um and I don't see how anyone can couch that in practicality.
SPEAKER_03Well, and I don't think a lot, there, there are there are a few, like I said, Bob and and and Heidi Feldstein Soto, who have uh endorsed Chemarinsky and a few people who've been active in the criminal justice reform movement generally. Most of the dem clubs haven't been buying what he's selling. The Democratic Party certainly wasn't buying what he's selling. Uh, they and the AFL CIO and uh the LA Times have all endorsed Gascone. And the argument I'm hearing from some of the Democrats is, oh, George's agenda is perfect. It's just, you know, he he's he's too unpopular or too many people are angry with him, uh, so we need to find a different spokesperson. And they're gonna do the same thing to anybody else, right? They're gonna do the same thing to anybody who is pushing for reform. You know, if if if any other candidate, if if Chemarinsky or anybody got elected and tried to do the same things Gascone is doing, they would be coming at them with the same thing. Except they wouldn't be doing it to a guy who's a former cop, like George Gascone is, who can actually talk about it from the perspective of being a police officer. That part. Uh, you know, you you don't have the you wouldn't have it coming from someone who's actually been doing the job, who's done the job in San Francisco, who's been doing the job here. And, you know, as progressives, we just can't give up when when the going gets tough. And it's a time to be rallying uh behind Gascoin and putting all our resources there.
SPEAKER_01And to your point about him being a former police officer, I think that was something that kind of that activated him because he saw generations of the same family that he was arresting. And then they would go back to, you know, they get out of jail and go back to jail. And it was like, you know, about grandfather, father, son. And he's like, wait a minute, this not this does not compute. This is not clicking. We have to do something. We have to do better. Because if I'm and this is coming from somebody who's actually boots on the ground, saw it happening, and decided at some point something else needs to be done. We need to change the way we police or change the way we put or punish or or just change the judicial system uh from the ground up. But see, the problem is, and it is about the messaging, because until I did my own research uh about um Die Gascon, I had no idea that he was a former police officer. And unfortunately, sometimes I think progressives were sitting a circling circle, circling firing squad. You know, we eat our own. We we we're not good with messaging. And if the things don't seem the way that we think it should, then we, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater. But we need to start listening and getting out messages. And like you were saying, uh, unfortunately, because the media is you get, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. But they they talk about all the wrong things that are going on, like the smash and grabs and you know, the you know, all the different crimes, except for Brian crimes, like you said, they're going down. No, they don't talk about what's the the good. And you know, that's why it's important for me, for people like me who have been victimized by the criminal justice system. We tell our stories and we uh tell people this is what happens for all these, you know, for people who are directly impacted. Because you don't see a human face, it's easy to disregard and and and fall for the bullshit. There's you know, there's no other way of saying it without telling stories and without without, and that's how they change the narrative. But we need to do a better job at getting out what is going right instead of constantly uh what you know what we're hearing is what is going wrong.
SPEAKER_00And and change people's conceptions of of what a true justice system would look like. That again, it's not hard on crime. Um, it's actually thinking about what are what are the root causes of crime, how are we going to address those. I think what has seen, you know, Gasco and has seen a disproportionate amount of fire. So of the other reform prosecutors across the country. And and again, when you we've been talking in this conversation about a lot about history, when you contextualize it in history, reforming criminal justice is the key to dismantling one of the most harmful systems of racial oppression. And you have these reform prosecutors at the forefront of this hundreds year battle trying to change something. And I think what's indicative is some people say the quiet part out loud. When those tapes were leaked last year, Nuri Martinez said about George Gascone, he's with the blacks. And that is, I think if anything, kind of tells you sometimes where this rhetoric and where the ferocity behind this rhetoric is coming from, because we know it doesn't come from the economic arguments. We know it's not coming from practical arguments, but it's definitely strong. It's motivated by something. And that just helps put the pieces together. And I think that when we think about George Gascone on the forefront of this, to expect him to unravel hundreds of systems, uh hundreds of years of systematic systemic racism. Um, he's not going to do it in three years. What he has done has been, again, practical, measured, informed, has, you know, we've had seen violent crime go down, but we do need to keep on with this movement and not just keep on with the movement and keep on with him. But I think incumbent on all of us is to start having more nuanced conversations, informed by personal stories and informed by real experiences, where we start to talk about criminal justice reform and recognize that it is necessary if we are ever going to become a more equitable and more just society.
SPEAKER_03All right. Well, we are pretty much out of time. Before we go, uh, is there any place that listeners can follow you on social media?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm on the app formerly known as Twitter, uh, as well as Instagram at Marissa Roy underscore LA. Um, and I would just make a plug also to follow the great work of organizations like LA Forward, which has put out a voter guide, um, to see, to learn a little bit more, not just about the DA's race, but about judicial races too.
SPEAKER_01Well, for me, because as I said, I'm a woman of a certain age. I have a some kind of a following. So on Twitter, it's um at Lady Cab Driver. And because I'm a cab driver and I'm a lady, and don't get the print song, get the print song out your head when you think about it. And on on the on Instagram, um Lady Lady Cabby 66, the year I was born, that part.
SPEAKER_03All right, and you know, we we are are are people of a certain age. Uh I I will be 57 in just a couple weeks. Okay, so okay. We're right there together. Thank you. Thanks. Um, I actually had to calculate because I try to be in denial about it. So I'm like, am I 56 or 57? Where am I gonna be?
SPEAKER_02You know what? You look pretty dang good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, especially after all the stress you've been through.
SPEAKER_02Being out of City Hall of uh You look so much more relaxed. I've gotten a lot younger, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yep. All right, uh before we go, let me just remind folks it is time to vote. It is time to vote. If you need to find out where you can see your sample ballot or where your voting drop box is or where you can vote in person at a vote center, go to lavote.gov. That is the county registrar's office. And it's a sort of a one-stop shop for everything about the election. That's lavote.gov. And just a reminder, because I've gotten this question if you failed to register to vote, you can still go to a vote center and you can register provisionally in person. And they will they will wind up taking your vote and they will count it so you still have time to vote. Uh, and that uh the vote center hours, by the way, are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., except on election day when it's 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. So go to LAvote.gov, find out where to vote, and go do it. That's it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. Thanks for joining me. Until next time, thank you. Take care and peace.