Cops and robbers III: Crime and punishment in California (Part 1 of 2); Cops and robbers

Tonight we have with us assemblyman John Baskin sellers on the 24th and me district. Who has introduced. Legislation into the assembly to revise. Any of the penalties. For a variety of crimes and the ways of handling criminal offenders. We also run it Robin Lampson. Who prepared with a chief consultant on the report called crime and penalties in California which was prepared by the assembly Office of Research. For the assembly committee on criminal procedure. And we're going to be discussing the new legislation which has been introduced in the report which led to this legislation. A sentiment which I can tell is something about the legislation and

what its major implications are sure of your. Six program really do. Reset the groundwork of the final thrust of the parole system as a means of dealing with the war in California. The dog especially. Suggests so you a new policy based on reported rather than completed and I think reflects that there is a great deal of rethinking real I wish as to what is the most effective way to deal with already of criminal conduct in terms of public interest and public safety. In balancing individual interests and social interests in the public. Interest in

many things we're learning more about these days and tremendous changes pervading almost every institution. It was thought that appropriate that we re-examine our purposes in our insights in the area of prison parole. The report documents suggest that. There's a better way than that which we've been utilizing which is ours you can bring people away keeping an ear for inordinately long periods of time without a very well-defined policies to how or when they are to be released on parole or put back in the society. I think it's fair to say that the dollar for the victims is a pro program of deterrence at this point. Just when a person is released from prison has apparently no written policy at all in the program of who gets released when and where and doesn't have a very.

Clear picture of what he will do in the study or observe this bill provides that. There shall be a policy assessment policy basically this as a policy we can get in the streets as soon as there's been a period of a sentence has been served except in cases where they've been guilty of certain violent crimes or several violent crimes and have. I think of the basic inside of it is that these are human beings who probably will do better in terms of being safe in society by being returned sooner and regarded more readily than by being warehoused or locked up for longer periods of time. So there were some back more quickly and in direct support board to protect policy very shortly. So in fact we were back in the communities under parole system in terms of insert

successes accomplishment or direction. I think one of the major things that led to the bill was the report in particularly the and this it is the interesting research you did on their own. Why deterrence. What makes some of the penalties it down or what increased penalties had done. I was particularly interested in the penalties against police officers. Would you like to tell us about how this claim since. Yeah I think the. The history behind the whole study and this represents just one aspect. This particular report represents just one aspect of the criminal procedures committee's work at this point and grew out of a recognition on the part of a number of the assemblyman on the committee in particular the chairman that penalties over the last few years have been considerably

increased. The one you referred to assaults on police officers have been increased and made a separate offense all by itself in 1965. But the real spurned come out of the. Increasing discussion around marijuana in which a number of the assemblyman in the early 60s have anticipated in the increase of penalties around the offense of marijuana possession and use. And after six or seven years of experience discovering the number of people being arrested and convicted and so forth has gone up dramatically despite the increase in penalties I think this has all been part of what the assemblyman alluded to earlier in saying the winds of change the questioning of some of the things we've assumed to be true for a long time. And as a consequence what community said we really want to take a look at how effective our current penalty system

is from a standpoint of deterrence doesn't keep people from committing criminal acts. Well this particular report focused on the question or on the issue that. California keeps its criminal offenders locked up in prison longer than really anybody else in the world. There is one state Pennsylvania which is a major industrial state like California although it only has half the population that has sentences a little longer. But generally United States holds people in prison more than anybody else. And California comes very close to the top namely about 30 months. And we noticed that a number of other states for years have. Camping for considerably less than this and their crime rate didn't seem to be any different from ours. There were so many murders so many assaults so many burglaries

and so forth in proportion of our gal. And so we question whether or not we were actually getting any greater community protection public protection as well as rehabilitation for the considerable additional cost of holding these people. Keeping men in prison is a very expensive proposition runs pretty close to about 1.3 million dollars a month for each additional month to keep a man in prison. If you look at the total prison population of the state. That were kind of our point of departure and we said you know are we in effect getting our money's worth from the standpoint of both rehabilitation and public protection. And of are there other ways in which the public might be better protected for the money that they're spending. This is really the whole idea underlying this report we went out and spent almost a year

digging through all kinds of literature with this. Stake in others are often given. From it came this report which said in effect now we're holding people too long we can safely police into the streets earlier. And then we probably could spend our money much more wisely. Saving by reducing the prime minster in the prison we can use that savings much more effectively by developing community programs including the. Whole. Improvement in the ability of police to catch people which we happen to think on the basis of the limited evidence that there is is a better deterrent than long prison. I notice that some of your rec commendations concerned. The. The one which you see is that you would require private citizens and local governments to accept responsibility for mechanical

deterrents. Is there any evidence that this is going to do any more then and locking up people. Who do we actually commit their crimes. While some of our assemblyman and I were talking on the way down about this whole question. Can we make crime more difficult to come yet. For those people who are not affected by the kind of penalty structure that we have right now for example in. The belly of that that the law enforcement judges correctional people have to prevent certain kinds of offenses are very minimal. It's very difficult to stop a car thief. And most of these are youngsters who go out for joy ride because you know a lot of people leave keys in the car and they're not really acting very

responsibly by this. And considering the nature of the public which is I'm willing to leave my keys in a $3000 automobile in a person who comes along and says I want to go for a ride or I need to get from here to there. And so they so this big get together the guy gets his car stolen. The public is not being taken responsible by doing this we suggest that. One of the answers lays in forcing the public to be more responsible and there is a bill in the legislature now for example that would require the automobile manufacturers to put a key system ignition system that can turn the motor up to pull the key out. This reminds the public unless they want to leave the core of the motor running that their responsibility is to reduce the opportunity and that. Whole issue of burglary is one that right here or near here in Oakland. The police have been fairly effective by saying to merchants for

example look we'll come out and investigate your first burglary but we're going to look over your store and we're going to tell you what you're going to have to do in terms of locks and bars on the windows and alarms to make you place much more burglar proof. If the merchant chooses to ignore. This morning the advice from the police and they have another very green the police have to come back. My understanding is that a local ordinance this man can be charged a fee for the services of the police and can be fined as a matter of fact there's no reason in the world like a merchant you know would leave his door open at night when he goes home this would be I think everyone would agree totally irresponsible. Yet this kind of thing is done constantly by people who have very cheap locks you know who don't like have the exterior of their building and we just feel it it's wrong for the public to have to pay for this kind of responsibility.

You notice it too. You pin down the figure to 600 million dollars in state and local. Funds being used in the criminal justice system. But these figures of course you're always subject you're off you know 50 million where no that these figures were developed. By your own general or space General Corporation as part of their major study a few years ago for the state of California in trying to look over some of the problems in the whole criminal justice system. It was kind of a beginning first step and we have used some of the information that came out. The police and the state cost us four hundred million dollars to have the district attorneys public defenders in the justice system the courts the state correctional facilities Youth Authority and the Department of Corrections around us about two

hundred twenty million dollars here. Really quite expensive of course says nothing about all the damage that is done the loss of property loss of life. This time. There was one thing that I'm really interested me because it's a local problem here in San Francisco or it's come to an end soon Francisco and I'm really wondering how you might feel the same women as a legislator about the fact that the courts. Have. Responded to some of these increasingly severe penalties particularly in the marijuana field. I think particularly your church parish. And singer Francisco who confronted with the fact that he would have to imprison marijuana users based on prior convictions has set aside prior convictions. How do you as a legislator feel about the fact that the courts have in essence decided to get themselves into the legislation field.

Not happy except I suppose if we don't do our job properly here we can't be too happy when somebody else takes it over for us and I think that is more important to the wars the criminal penalties the penal system in California is not relevant to the. Corroding her reality current size and I suppose is why Richard sure you know the situation and probably do the same thing so they don't look very condemning condemning what he's done. There are better ways and stuff better insulation by the legislature but that isn't always as quick a process and right now we're debating a lot of these things are there too. I think the issues come to a head fairly recently not so much locally. Although a lot of the issues are coming to a head over this fear of civil disorders and Mayor Daley's recent statements certainly bring it alive. It is demanded

that his police force should arsonists sensate and shoot to maim or cripple looters. I don't know how you feel this this sort of work that you're doing now is to essentially create less punitive systems. It's going to affect these kinds of civil disorders. I'm not sure we're all going to be resolved more in terms of prevention. I think through education jobs housing get any acceptance of those types of operations which are mostly private governmental also. And I suppose what we're doing is recognizing that you a lot of things lead revaluation a redirection of society and you've got to deal with it.

Bill in the future in terms of prevention you've got to deal with controlling the situation currently to go to you with those who've already gotten outside the law and try to figure out what to do with them and how to get them back into the mainstream. Not much sure that any one of them is going to resolve the other problems but. But they're all going at the same time to deal with all of them. Best we can Yes we can is when you know you know Arnold Toynbee once made the statement that one of the marks of civilization is the fact that it created problems faster than it could solve. And so you're feeling like this is one of the things that I think is unfortunate in terms of the public's conception of crime is that they tend to want a great deal together and we have some rather distinct kinds of crime civil disorder racial riots. Kind of thing as is one type of Crime Illustrated by looting

an arson and sniping. But this is a very particular response to a very particular situation. You have the kind of criminal activity which is the most classical in the sense it's the most familiar to the police and the one that we were involved with at this current time the what are often defined as the major crimes for example by the FBI. Murder assault or sexual offenses or car theft burglary robbery these kinds of things. Thirdly you have an area that is essentially unstudied and there is a great deal of awareness really of it in that white collar crime corporate kind of crime. Income tax evasion embezzlement you know that the stealing paperclips or you're stealing your stock or this kind of thing which is done by really members of the power structure. And I'm trying to get a fourth kind of that's organized crime which does tend to cut across some of this other but is a very distinct problem by itself. And yes the public you know

really confuses these four kinds of crimes which are four areas of criminal activity. We're going to get all last up in solutions because they each have different approaches and different solutions to them and I think that obviously to take an extreme example the way you would approach the whole problem of organized crime is going to be drastically different from what you do from a preventative standpoint in terms of civil disorder. And of course our area of study that is that of the Criminal Procedures Committee right now is on the secondary I mention the world classical situation. One of the things that I notice you emphasize in terms of trying to do correctional work rather than store your work is to beef up local jurisdictions and local communities and their parole systems I had some serious questions in my mind about this because we know for instance that this is why

a the caliber of people working with the Seaway and the caliber of work done in the state institutions the state penal institutions is very much higher than in our county jails which are frequently sinkholes. And this is the local probation of ours which really don't have the kind of training and the caliber of men that the state agencies have. How are you going to try to deal with that with this. The hope is to transfer those resources of a large ship just in time this foreign city institutions and transfer them to local youths finances the town. And all resources and. Rubbing it in prose work with those who might even think to do this is recognition. Basically in this report the rehabilitation can best occur in the community and closeness in closer friends and the support of factors

that range in a person's ability to relate grow and in going back and be taken away for a while you know what kind of treatment given the right resources or commitment in terms of talent is just really a kind of a vacuum as it isn't where he lives his life is in his environment it can get him back in the community and do it and there are more of an every day basis. Seems of that that's more likely to mean he won't really help a person has a problem and you know there's no question that the phone level at least at this point a level of. Service that's the right term is higher state local but it will actually have to be. We can induce local levels of government and law enforcement correctional programs to meet the same others through financial inducements or just through educational processes or that they know as well as where

you are the priority for answers. I think it's a better place to be able to do it. I think continue to compress it a little further. There are for instance standards for county jails which recently in San Francisco will lose we're confronted with the fact that our county jail doesn't meet those standards. And despite this fact there seems to be. No way to put some bite into the to the state standards to bring our local county jail up to those standards how are we going to. You know how we're going to create a bite to snatch just a manner of inducement or education. But there's some here in the city for local communities to to to conform to a higher standard. You know by or for the electorate a local community that will put the pressure on these local legislators control or executive. Orders or I suppose financial state loan terms of state sharing the cost of programs and facilities they don't measure up certain ways don't you know share of the proceeds

of the TechStars. Same way. Because there is an illustration of this last card terms of financial inducement that. The probation subsidy was developed in the legislature a. Few years ago two or three I guess in which when a man is sentenced to the state prison system and the judge then places his own on probation. The state will pay the county the cost of this man's care and supervision by a probation officer the idea being that if you don't put him in the state prison then the stay saved a cost of having to operate another bad enough institution and it provides and this money to the county is an incentive to not send him to prison also recognizing that no prison really isn't a very healthy place for a lot of people in terms of rehabilitation. This same kind of an incentive program could be developed around the jails.

I think one of the criticisms that I would have my own record is that we did not develop fully the whole question of alternatives to a state prison system but it obviously much work has to be done to develop programs in jails. I think the historical problem is this that. The thinking went that if you have a man who was disturbed or dangerous and you wanted to provide sank you had to carry all the things you shipped him to a state institution where they could concentrate these people and these services and many counties could not afford them or thought they could. And the jail was essentially a holding place pending this transfer or a place where rather in consequential people were kept for drunkenness and this kind of thing. And so there's been very little attention paid to the program. However there are some law enforcement people who have reversed this trend and I think quite intelligently for example in

San Joaquin County the sheriff there Mike Candace hired a man to act as a social worker in the jail. The social worker promptly found a couple of very intelligent and inmates who were serving a rather long period of time and turned him into a caseworker aide so that at this point a man who was going out on parole or as problems with his family has someone to turn to to try to solve these problems. Where am I going to get a job. What's happening to my family how do I get them on welfare. That's necessary. You know what is going on to keep this contact alive with the outside world. One of the fundamental problems that's wrong with institutions. This is their so abnormal and so I have a chapter called The society in which people have to learn how to live. You can't teach people how to live in the community by putting them in prison and they do it for other reasons you want your pound of flesh you want to punish and something like this or they're simply too dangerous to be left out on the

streets. But it's very difficult to provide the kind of an atmosphere that's conducive to learning how to function intelligently in a community by playing an institution. Unfortunately all our efforts have been directed towards the state and local and I think it's a matter of moving back and saying Let's re-evaluate our prevention programs or law enforcement programs or jail programs and see if we can provide some of these services in the local community using the state funds that are saved by not putting people into these enormous institutions do you see the same shift occurring in review of mental health. We're going away from the large who are has a room to store your forbearers creative types of food situations in the community. So the proof of the way you think of the prison area was reduced through tremendous change in attitude. There was a crime and punishment were were duals and prisons and things are.

Meant for retribution or with the system to safeguard society through education during dangerous periods of deterrence against crime repeat crimes and I think that. Surprisingly rapidly people generally recognize and show that we're we're kind of going forward. We're not so much I know but it was a very different quality of judgment as to what you do with people outside of Paris. We'd like to have it there. There was a three year period in terms of. Locking people up and punishing them one is the use of punishment there's deterrence public deterrence and death. I'd like you to talk a little bit

more about it the findings that you made in terms of what deterrent factor is if there is in penalties. True. Well broadly speaking the more we look at the whole question of long prison terms the more Confound it we got then. And that's a little depressing in the sense that we couldn't find any evidence that a long prison sentence really kept people from committing a crime is depressing in the sense that if it were true you might have a rather expensive but at least you have a known solution to the idea that the longer you keep people the better off society is because these people tend not to do it again. This is not the case unfortunately and there doesn't seem to be any relationship to how people get along on parole. How successful they are in the community and how much time they serve. The evidence indicates that a

number of other factors are much more important do they have a job when they get out or does their family accept them or reject them. What can people who they associate with. And this is these are the important factors that govern whether or not a person makes it or has to go back to prison because he commits another crime. Not how long they serve. This is the basis of the assemblyman to build that. We can reduce this whole question of our time that they serve in prison still protect society around saying people shouldn't go to prison we are saying they shouldn't go for inordinately long periods of time. With this. This deals with the person who is the offender but what about the hundred other people in my community crime. But know that if they do how do that how do the penalties affect them. It's good if you're rich or poor Maurice or it took too.

Long. It's always been assumed I think it's kind of one of the basic. Accepted facts in our society that the tougher you get was people the longer the determinist over the penalty the greater the likelihood that people won't commit a criminal act and I think that. We went around and asked people selected people people in prison a sample of the general public college students high delinquent high school students low income high school students what they knew about penalties on the assumption that if you were going to evaluate a choice I will commit this crime or I won't. You have to have some idea what the penalties were and we found essentially people are quite ignorant. Even prison inmates are too well-informed although they're better informed than the general public about penalties and led us to believe that because of the lack of knowledge it's impossible for people to really weigh

alternatives. Well I commit this crime considering the punishment or one guy is it worth the gain. Think Furthermore beyond that there are certain crimes or crimes on which from a standpoint of deterrence are a very tough. One of course most people are concerned about the violent crime of murder. Most people who commit murder are known to each other. Eighty percent 85 percent know each other in these terms a victim is aware that may be a relative it may just be a neighborhood you know a quaint sure something like us but you know each other. It's committed in the heat of passion and anger and this is a very tough thing to deter would be like putting a policeman in everybody's home or in every bar or all over the streets. So in case anybody got mad there'd be somebody there to prevent this. Is true of assault for example which the majority of assaults are based

around the liquor kind of thing that people get a little tanked up and tend to be edgy or angry and something happens and the emotional controls are not there. This is opposed to a crime I say for every where you sit down you figure out nobody is living in that house so they're gone between these hours and those are not going in there and take something. What I was alluding to earlier when I said I think some crimes we can make it more difficult to commit thereby increase the deterrence. Burglary can be prevented I think to a much greater extent simply by construction methods of new homes or as crimes of passion are very hard to prevent. You don't know when they're going to happen or under what conditions. And I think that you know this is not really a concept that is recognised. You know our laws today. Consequently we hand out very harsh penalties for what we call crimes of

passion. People like these penalties and they certainly don't want to be executed or they don't want to go to prison for extended periods of time but in the moment of committing an act. They don't think about this recall an example of a young man the other day who had incidentally been in the Special Forces service in Vietnam and was trained you know to be a very effective fighter and he pulled up in front of a bank one day into a parking spot apparently without realizing it he'd taken a spot where somebody was waiting to back in and this person was very or taken up grab him started call him out of the car and that this young man responded really without thinking but was happy that this fellow I guess you call the way a karate chop or something in the neck and black to follow out. Now you know if he had done serious injury the consequences would have been very serious although this was not his intent.

The furthest thing from his mind and I think that to deter this kind of an act by saying we're going to increase the penalty and make the consequences very dire is one that doesn't have any weight or recognition after the time that the offense occurred. You talk specifically to get back to the thing that I mentioned first about the fact that despite the fact that there have been really major major escalation in the in the penalty city against police officers. The number of assaults on peace officers has skyrocketed. When this it Jess is it the penalties do not act as it is her and how are you going to. This is seems to be a crucial problem at this time it's certainly a problem in Oakland right now. How are you going to stop this kind of assault on police officers how else can you approach it except to fail them with a lot of power in

here. I've been worrying about that a little bit. I think we've been worrying about in Atlanta more you know your wish we were I don't know the answer. Your first I always say is that if this isn't working let's not do more this you know what we're going to ask for what we can do. I suppose it's all a question of war for better relations between law enforcement and the public and those who we're talking to contact with for the record I mean your surgery Americans are so sure about it very quickly. Think one of the problems is that we don't really know very much about the kinds of assaults that are committed on police officers. This is generally true we don't really very little about the kinds of crimes that are committed. And it's my own feeling that

much of the assaults on policemen have come out of this. All the social revolution in terms of how people protest how they voice their frustrations towards other people. And I suppose I don't know the answer is any kind of than you do but I suppose the answer lays in trying to attack some of the frustrations that go about creating the situation where people feel free to to act out. I don't know. I'm inclined not to believe that there is a basic breakdown in our moral fiber you know lessening of respect. That's a very sticky problem. I think that this is not the case. Perhaps like a lot of things who once we begin to notice that a certain activity is taking place you become more aware of it. It's like learning a new word you've never seen it before you suddenly run into it once you look it up in the dictionary and you begin to

see it much more frequently because you know you're aware of it. This factor does happen in law enforcement and to a certain extent perhaps it's a kind of a vicious circle of people become concerned about assaults on police when people become aware that this is something to do. And it begins to feed itself the policeman then becomes a focused symbol and a lot of hostility is directed at him as a symbol I think the situation in Hunter's Point. Where the police officer was shot. As I recall some of the newspaper stories at least he was shot because he was a policeman. And there's been a lot of talk about you know you guys ride around in black and white cars and you are sitting ducks because we can really see this kind of thing. And they represent a symbol in which you attack because it is a symbol. I had an occasion to talk with a number of young men

who have had some serious criminal charges in the past about precisely this issue and they were talking particularly about the increase in the use of tactical units theory at this point since the death of Officer Herman. And they were very upset that they feel that that the that the response of community responses really put them in a bad position in some sense issues to be a mutual escalation going back much more. So if you're a police response and a more severe response from from the kids there. And isn't that the issue of how to defuse this. This time bomb that we have there is an imponderable either in

or you know there's another factor in Cho just in terms of opportunity and I suppose a way illustrated by your point. One of the things that we talked about in the report was that we felt there was considerable. More deterrent value in increasing the police capability of catching people than for example long prison terms. My work with prison inmates over the years I've heard them so frequently talk about you know they don't want to be caught. They're in there when you're committing a burglary you're not thinking about you how much time I'm going to get you you looking over your shoulder where is that guy in blue. Is he going to catch me is there a squad car. We talked about can we in some way increase the capability of the police. And one way they tried to police or try to do this is to get to the crime much quicker. The scene of the crime they find that arrest rates go up greatly when they can get there in a minute or two as opposed to 20 minutes. However at the same time as in their effort to do this

particularly in the troubled areas of any city they tend to concentrate a lot more of their officers. And so there's a much greater opportunity for friction in a clash to occur and I think that the matter of the increasing the penalty is totally irrelevant. It was quite ineffective myself. No the evidence doesn't prove that one way or the other the only we can say is that they increased eventually and they have now been more attacks but not necessarily because of the opportunity for these kinds of attacks has increased. Communities have become more tense your allusion to a time bomb trying to diffuse this thing. I know that when I was in Chicago this last summer I was impressed by the fact that writing through some of the poorer areas in the communities that there were police cars everywhere they were cruising they were stopped just waiting sometimes and as you're involved in all occasions but there were police cars everywhere and yet you drive out into suburbia or around the University of Chicago rap and

you'd see any cars and there's a great deal of crime that does go on in these poor neighborhoods. And consequently they concentrate on the cars the officers here and so there's a much greater opportunity. You've introduced this legislation we've seen a lot more local papers about what's been the general response to the legislation so the response that I received was received some more professional response. But I'm going to think March 28 was it which is now three weeks into my response has been we have those letters from individuals or groups who have relatives in prison and think it's a very good deal. A couple other people for the record I have not had any letter or any call or a visit and you were critical just kind of stunned me I thought sure I'd get something for my district or from people who believe

some kind of you're going to always mucking around in the race and believe me it's been really quiet of more years I think the most interesting responses come from some of the law enforcement people I know who frankly I expected you know we would be in taking a stick and they have taken the position that as far as they are concerned the kind of problems that they have to cope with under the existing system are not being solved by that system and they want to investigate alternatives. No they're not condensed. Some of. By any means that this report already feels necessary for the answer but they're willing to listen they're willing to look. As an alternative. I've been surprised by the number of officers who said to me for example look you know you could really see half the people in prison now. And it wouldn't make any difference. And one of the things now that we've really not mentioned is that the second part

of the bill which. Would take these savings accrue as a result of men being paroled earlier and give these to the litter the saving to the local communities to develop their jail programs to develop their prevention programs to improve the capability of their own courts. This is really the second part of this bill. And I think frankly the law enforcement people feel that this is a worthwhile effort. I made mention of Sheriff countless some pink County he's always an example we look towards her in the law enforcement. It really does for America and I was talking enough on the go and we were talking about the problem of financing law enforcement and he said Rahman it's not a question of law enforcement not having enough money at this point in the system it's that terribly poor allocation of that money we have about 300 and 75 police or sheriff's office in the state of California. Every one of them must

maintain its own radio system must maintain its own fingerprint must maintain its own criminal lab. And this goes you know from the little. Department of five or six men the Charleston County down to Los Angeles you know hundreds of uniformed officers. Just very poorly allocated doing you know. Are you going out in the smaller counties one mobile crime lab that could handle all of this you know a greatly reduced cost. And I think we're seeing in effect the same thing in crime penalties in California report namely that from a cost effectiveness standpoint technically from that standpoint we must reallocate how we distribute our funds at this point in terms of developing a more effective program controlling crime and just at this point the first step is. To get some of this money out of this lengthy and very expensive incarceration. In these enormous institutions which all the correctional in spurts across the country incidentally can damn

very poor place to try to do anything and try some new approaches with this money. We certainly can't go on indefinitely just increasing the amount of money we spend each year. I just paid my taxes I'm not interested in having a co-op anymore. And I think we have to examine can we reallocate can we redistribute the money in a more effective fashion and this is the thrust of sentiment that's what sells. Bill you mentioned some things you said the amount of time served has no measurable effect upon crime among the released convict. And you talk about the example security in case the California women prisoners could you would you like Illustrator I think to think those are important things that have to be said. First of all let me say this that because I don't want to create in people's mind that we have all the answers criminal statistics and.

Really getting a hold of something terribly solid it's difficult in this business of crime statistics are not collected very. Well cross this country but there have been a few examples where we feel that they're quite illustrative of. What really is going on now beginning in case that you mention a situation that happened in Florida. Where the court said that a lot of men had to be released. Because they had not been represented by counsel and they were didn't have the money for it. And so there were a number of men who were turned loose long before they normally would have been released from prison if they served out their full sentence of Florida Department of Corrections to this group of what they call premature releases. And they match them up on a character by character basis with inmates who had served the normal full length term. So they were discharging go out on parole they were just discharged without any supervision back into the community. And if all these people and

after a period of time had passed over two years and went to look at how many guys got back in trouble in each of these groups and they found out that 13 percent of these premature release groups had about 25 percent of those who had been kept pulling term. Example here in our own state is that about 1959 the women's board of terms and parole which is the equivalent of the adult authority for women fairly arbitrarily decided that they would decrease what they call the median or the average time that people serve women serve in California prisons and they went from I think about 24 months down to 12 months. They were instead of a woman normally serving 24 months she has served well. When you look at the reset of the ISM rates the rate back in trouble you can't tell anything at all. There is no relationship at all in seven years it's up a little bit some years it's down essentially it's relatively constant. So here you're holding these

people a much shorter time considering and considering the savings and bought all of this and the results appear to be the same. We are trying to imply this and some other examples to our adult population which numbers around 28000 men ques about a hundred million dollars a year are expensive and we were unable to find any evidence on the other side and we did look. To indicate that the longer you help people in prison the more likely they were to succeed on parole this kind of evidence just wasn't there. That is not true. If you talk about developing a rational parole policy I know from my work that one of the things that happens the second time an adult offender is rearrested he said. But whether they place a hold on the adult authority places all the time pretty regularly. So that in essence before he's even tried for the new offense he's

incarcerated. These questions to due process and the whole penal system. One of the little things for instance where are the people who have time taken away from them in their in the prisons by by either by the arbitrary acts of the prison guard which we recently uncovered in San Francisco or sometimes by a rather informal type of disciplinary board seem to be giving to the prison people or the custodial people. Power is that we wouldn't give to a charge of our standard fairly arbitrarily and you've been able to deal with this kind of matter really ought to have done within the bureau. There are some moments of finger variability which deal with these so-called critical Well ations. Robert Moore again very with the radio. There's a

different set of bills and secondly I would answer Oh yes we should deal with threats of conflicts or for the book during the first fruition after lots of voting rights frustrations civil rights were real to them all in prison. I see that step forward actual but mine doesn't. I don't think that people generally realize that a prison is one of the few remaining examples of these in this country of a totalitarian system than where the warden to all intents and purposes is a monarch whose word is law. One of the Congress things about prison and I mentioned earlier this is a very abnormal a typical living situation and anything comparable to it in our society. You have to compare it to a concentration camp I suppose or really anything like that. We take the inmate

would just well to this kind of situation. Or who will admit his guilt. You know in chains I was terribly wrong to do this you know. But now I've learned to adjust and I've not had any problem when in prison got along beautifully. And we released this fellow the person who does not adjust well to the prison like he may fight the authoritarian nature of being regimented which you know is something considered desirable in our country the individual the free individual expression of his will and desires. And we penalize that person I say we're going to keep you here longer. And I've often thought about the example of the aggressive salesman you know who are. Kind of pushing people around sometimes but it was really rather well thought of in our society as successful in terms of the. Monetary reward. You try this in prison guards you don't ever get out. I think there are some of the basic kinds of inconsistency that the public is not aware. I've often thought of one more example and that is the.

President reminded me of the sacred people the way a person may create an automobile and start in the morning. And late to slam the garage doors on it for six months and then after the time has passed or two or three or five or ten years occasionally you open the door and say alright car now run. We kind of do this with human beings in prison for the way for. We open the door and say no. Rather. Live intelligently don't make the same mistake or. You know a couple of times we brought up the public response from the public lack of information about these things. This course is why were we there to be with us and what we've been trying to do regularly is to bring a lot more information to the public. I find it very difficult. And and I mean in the field I find it's very difficult to find out what's happening in terms of legislation and what's happening in terms of police practice in general. In

fact one of the one of the. Things that is really most concerning me right now is that there are a lot of police preparations being made who are control of private something like that which I think should be a matter of public discussion and are public policy issues which haven't come up how or how can we deal with that or are there any things that are now going on to deal with these kinds of problems. I don't know I suppose the press is the best in the media the best. Chance of changing. And facing a lot of areas that I begin to Florida legislature that. Much of our society is based on keeping things secret from one another and from group to group to touche an institution. I'm not quite sure why we do that. Or take your own little knowledge information and practice. That I think is kind of unwinding itself to. A kind of movement toward more openness more but with disclosure of. Things whether it's.

Politicians. Physical records or. Government pressure. It's moving. Faster than the public outcry about making it. There's an old saying in corrections that. Prison walls weren't really put there to keep people inside as much as they were to. Keep the public from. Having to think about what's going on. Not a lot of our correctional policy I think is based on the idea that you sanitize the community you take the bad elements out and get them out of the way and forget about them. I think the Vietnam War as you know television pickle you know illustrates. How people can be informed about a particular situation.