By Marjorie Hernandez
Ventura County Star
Law enforcement officials say they are concerned the passage of a new law that provides early parole consideration will place more felons “back on the streets” without addressing crucial program gaps.
California voters on Tuesday passed Proposition 57 by a wide margin, with about 64 percent voting yes. The proposition, backed by Gov. Jerry Brown, was touted as a cost-saving measure to address the ballooning prison population. It would impact roughly 30,000 inmates who were convicted of nonviolent crimes and are eligible for parole.
The bill would allow these inmates credits for good behavior and for educational milestones they accomplish. Prop. 57 has another component that will allow a judge to decide whether a minor should be tried as an adult. That decision was previously made by prosecutors.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, along with other stakeholders, will have to adopt regulations to implement these changes.
Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten, who had campaigned against Prop. 57, said he was “disappointed” by the outcome and pointed to the millions of advertisement dollars he said Prop. 57 proponents spent to help push it through.
“We were in a classic David and Goliath battle, and I believe supporters largely misrepresented what it would do and used a lot of deceptive electioneering in an effort to secure its passage,” Totten said. “This initiative is going to make Ventura County a much more dangerous place. With its passage, however, my role now becomes how to implement the initiative as effectively as possible and in a way that minimizes the risk it presents to the public.”
Totten said the task starts with gathering stakeholders to develop administrative regulations that he hopes will “narrow the scope and not include the most dangerous offenders we have.”
Totten said so far his office had identified at least 15 felons who have committed serious crimes and would be eligible for early parole consideration under Prop 57. One of them, Totten said, includes Max Factor heir Andrew Luster.
Luster was sentenced in 2013 to 50 years in prison for drugging and raping three women in his Mussel Shoals home just north of Ventura.
Totten said he worries early parole considerations will be made “on paper” and without formal hearings.
“My concern is they will not be subjected to the transparency of formal hearing and you will see people released with dramatically reduced sentences back into our streets,” he said.
Loyola Law School professor Chris Hawthorne, who specializes in appellate criminal defense, said that scenario is unlikely. He said inmates who could be considered for early parole under Prop. 57 still would have to appear before a board, which would consider an inmate’s entire criminal record.
“I know the narrative from law enforcement is, ‘These dangerous people will get out,’” Hawthorne said. “That’s simply not going to happen. The parole board looks at the whole panoply of an inmate’s behavior. They are not going to let somebody out who they think is capable of committing future violence.”
According to a January 2013 study released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the reconviction rate of “lifers,” or offenders whose sentence is a maximum of life in prison, was about one-tenth of those inmates who served determinate sentences.
After three years, only 4.8 percent of lifer parolees surveyed had been convicted of any crime compared to a 51.5 percent recidivism rate for those serving determinate sentences, the study stated.
“Putting a parole system in place is actually increasing public safety because if you want to get out, you have to rehabilitate, take responsibility, and talk about how you will address your issues going forward with a parole board,” Hawthorne said. “That is actually better than simply making someone serve 10 years and then handing them an envelope full of their possessions and letting them walk out of the prison gates with no rehabilitation, no therapy, service discussion of the offense and how they could change.”
Mark Varela, Ventura County Probation Agency director, said it is too early to tell exactly how many inmates could be released back to the county under Prop. 57.
Over the past five years, counties throughout the state have had to address the influx of prison inmates released back to local jails under the realignment legislation that was also passed to address prison crowding and recidivism.
Another initiative passed by voters in November 2014, Prop. 47, reduced certain drug possession felonies to misdemeanors and required misdemeanor sentencing for other nonviolent and nonserious crimes. Some inmates who were facing longer felony sentences became eligible for immediate release.
Varela said Ventura County receives about $17 million annually to address realignment. It has yet to be determined how much money counties would receive to deal with inmates released under Prop. 57. About $1.3 million of realignment funding is spent on community-based programs.
The need is growing, especially for drug treatment programs and mental health programs, Varela said.
Another concern is providing enough programs and employment opportunities for the population that will be reintroduced into society. Varela said plans are in the works to establish a committee to assess the various needs.
Varela said it is also unclear how many offenders released under Prop. 47 and realignment have reoffended and are back in jail or prison. An even bigger question, he said, is what resources are available to address the needs of those who would be released back into communities.
“It’s really looking at our entire system,” Varela said. “We need to examine existing gaps, especially in drug and mental health treatment, and see how we can leverage current resources, or find new ones. We have a lot of offenders who were on some type of probation supervision, who are no longer receiving any guidance. They are out in the community and that is a huge concern for our local law enforcement.”
©2016 Ventura County Star