Aldon Thomas Stiles | California Black Media

What started out as an investigation into inmate deaths in some of California’s county jails led to an audit that uncovered severe overcrowding, a lack of mental health resources, and $8 billion in state funds for which three county Sheriff’s offices cannot properly account.

“What’s happening right now in these counties is not only unjust, but a disservice to our communities,” said Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles).

“It’s more than just about housing people. The sheriff’s departments have a duty to provide care and to rehabilitate those individuals who walk through their doors. That simply is not happening, while billions of dollars are being left on the table,” she said.

In an attempt to curtail California’s prison overcrowding problem, in 2011 the state Supreme Court ordered a sweeping reduction of the prison population. This led to the California Public Safety Realignment Initiative signed into law by former Gov. Jerry Brown. The program planned and arranged the transfer of thousands of incarcerated people from state prisons to county jails. It also provided billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the counties across the state to house and provide services to the inmates. The law also set up the Community Corrections Partnerships (CCPs) in each county to oversee and manage the state funds.

Then, last March, following a spike in inmate deaths, Kamlager requested an audit of county jail systems focused on Alameda, Fresno and Los Angeles counties.
About a year later, last week, California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle released the findings of her investigation.

In a letter to the Legislature, Howle shared her findings. She wrote, “our assessment focused on public safety realignment, and we determined that these three counties and the Corrections Board have not done enough to mitigate the effects of realignment or effectively overseen related spending and services.”

Howle told lawmakers since 2011, Alameda, Fresno and Los Angeles counties all have run overcrowded prisons, violating the state’s jail capacity rules.

“The counties’ jails often lack adequate outdoor and educational facilities to provide certain vocational and rehabilitative programs for inmates who serve terms longer than three years,” she wrote.
Howle also told the legislators Alameda and Fresno counties did not provide adequate information about inmates’ health to the jail staff.

Responding to the audit, Fresno County corrections board executive director Kathleen Howard said the state audit “makes little sense.”

“There is, however, a fundamental disconnect between the overall position of the State Auditor on the structure of 2011 Public Safety Realignment funding and the role of the CCPs in handling these funds and the consistent interpretation given the statutory and constitutional framework by the BSCC and all the counties in California over the past 10 years,” Howard wrote.

Los Angeles and Alameda counties have also responded to the auditor’s report with their own explanations, clarifications and recommendations. Since then, the Auditor’s office has said it stands by its report and followed up with a point-by-point reply to each county.

In California, African Americans account for about 6 % of the state’s population but make up a disproportionate 28.3 % of incarcerated people. In contrast, Whites make up about 36 % of the state’s population but 21 % of prisoners.

Concerns of prison overcrowding in California came to a head when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to greatly reduce California’s prison population with the assertion that the massive number of inmates hindered the state’s ability to provide proper physical and mental health services, therefore violating their Eighth Amendment rights to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

However, this newly released report focused on Almeda, Fresno and Los Angeles County jails, suggests that “Realignment” actually contributed to the overcrowding issue and the lack of oversight at the county level, and has negatively impacted the well-being of the inmates the initiative was designed to help.

Kamlager says that the lack of planning involved with the initiative coupled with the lack of transparency over the last decade are contributing factors to the auditors’ conclusions.

“These findings show a clear need for a major increase in oversight and transparency in this process to ensure public safety,” Kamlager said. “They also show that the Board of State and Community Corrections is not up to the task of overseeing this process, or a similar program of this magnitude and weight.”

Kamlager continued by suggesting that this audit, shocking as it may be, could be a step in the right direction.

“While dismayed by the delay and appalled by the findings, I hope the audit will give the boards of supervisors for these counties the tools they need to exact real change. Advocates have been fighting for this information for a while,” Kamlager said.

Advocates like Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a grassroots organization intent on improving state policy on a number of hot button issues agrees.

“We incarcerate too many people for too long, already. Tax dollars that were used a generation ago to pay for schools and public housing have been diverted to pay for more law enforcement and incarceration,” CURB said in a statement.

CURB’s concerns are shared by Vonya Quarles, an attorney and co-founder and executive director of Starting Over Inc., a Corona-based organization that focuses on protecting the rights of the currently and formerly incarcerated.

“We don’t have a justice system, we have an injustice system,” Quarles said, calling out California’s prison system. “We have an addiction to cheap labor, an addiction to slavery.”

By Stephen Oduntan

Shattered glass dotted the pavement.

Evidence of vandalism after violent confrontations between Los Angeles police and protesters in Hollywood on the first anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman fatally shot by Louisville police during a botched raid at her apartment.

Now, more than a week after the unrest, many businesses are still barricaded.

“We have a damage of roughly ten grand,” said the General Manager of BIBIBOP Asian Grill, Diana Arias, who also told L.A. Focus that of all the businesses on the strip, her restaurant possibly suffered some of the most severe damage from the carnage.

The rally began peacefully, with as many as 200 people gathered in Hollywood marching through streets blocking traffic at times. But what started as a peaceful protest soon after morphed into a tense standoff with police in riot gear at Vine Street and Lexington Avenue’s intersection.

Law enforcement responded to calls that several protesters dressed in all black clothing and equipped with various weapons had smashed windows and graffitied buildings.

The acronym “ACAB” (All Cops Are [Explicit] covered the walls in graffiti messages.

Video footage from the scene shows an unidentified man who tried unsuccessfully to keep a small mob of protesters from smashing the business’s windows but got pushed to the ground.

“There’s no need to break glass,” the man said.

Ignoring the man’s pleas to stop, a tall, slim protester armed with pepper spray spewed profanity to express his anger before other protesters grabbed the man and hauled him away.

“Breaking glass is not violence,” yelled the protester at the man. “What the [explicit] does glass matter to you? Police are killing people, and you give an [explicit] about glass.”

Eleven people were arrested on the night: five on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, three on suspicion of possessing a prohibited item, two on suspicion of unlawful assembly, and one on suspicion of battery on a police officer, said Officer William Cooper, an LAPD spokesman.

One protester was also treated for “injuries sustained during a use of force” by responding cops. The demonstrator was booked on charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, department officials said.

Meanwhile, the next day after the protest, LAPD Chief Michel Moore tweeted a link to a YouTube video of items being thrown at the officers, writing, “NO justification/excuse for this violence.”

Responding to that tweet, Capt. Steve Lurie, commander of the Hollywood Division, wrote that Hollywood officers were out that Saturday night “to ensure this group could express themselves under the umbrella of” the 1st Amendment, but the protesters “came to destroy Angelenos’ businesses and attack police officers.”

Nine businesses were vandalized during the protest, police said.

“Our building sustained several broken windows and doors, but then most of the damage was to our retailers who are responsible for their own repairs, which were hit really hard, said a property manager of a building on Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street and who requested anonymity in line with speaking publicly about the company’s matters without prior approval.

Some of the sources for this story said they would pursue criminal charges against people arrested during the protests.

“Everybody’s pressing charges because of the huge damage done to our stores, said Aria, the General Manager of BIBIBOP Asian Grill. “We’re not even sure if the people who were arrested were actually protesters because whatever point they were trying to make was quite apparent given all the damage they did to our businesses.”

Aria said she has supported in the past those who are rightfully outraged by the senseless loss of life in Louisville and elsewhere at the hands of police but wishes the culprits responsible for the damage to properties would realize the price business owners pay for vandalism goes far beyond money.

“They are causing more damage and hurt to others and saying they’re doing it to remember Breonna Taylor,” she said. “I wish they would’ve considered how bad this would look in [Breonna Taylor’s] name.”

No officers, meanwhile, who were at the residence in search of drugs have been charged in Taylor’s death, but a grand jury indicted one cop for shooting into neighboring apartments. No drugs were found during the raid.

Aldon Thomas Stiles | California Black Media

Watching your tax dollars, elected officials and legislation that affects you.

A pitcher throws a perfect game against a hitter without a bat, a tennis player aces a racket-less opponent, and the crowd elates. For many in California, that is their reality. The receiving end of a bad hand. A game most foul.

In Sacramento, there are a few bills being proposed that aim to level the playing field in California, particularly for disadvantaged Californians.

Senate Bill (SB)17, which is scheduled for an Assembly committee hearing on March 23, would declare racism as a health crisis in California and develop a state government “Office of Racial Equity in the State Department of Public Health for purposes of aligning state resources, decision-making, and programs to accomplish certain goals related to health equity and protecting vulnerable communities.”

The language in the text of SB 17 makes a distinction between this legislation and AB 3121, the “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” which Gov. Newsom signed into law last Summer.

“Existing law establishes the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, with a Special Consideration for African Americans Who are Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States to, among other things, identify, compile, and synthesize the relevant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the institution of slavery that existed within the United States and the colonies,” the bill language reads. “Existing law requires the task force to submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.”

“This bill would establish in state government an Office of Racial Equity, an independent public entity not affiliated with an agency or department, that shall be governed by a Racial Equity Advisory and Accountability Council,” SB 17’s authors continue. “The bill would authorize the council to hire an executive director to organize, administer, and manage the operations of the office. The bill would task the office with coordinating, analyzing, developing, evaluating, and recommending strategies for advancing racial equity across state agencies, departments, and the office of the governor.”

As issues of racial inequity gain more traction in the U.S., bills like SB 17 are being introduced in legislatures around the country, proposing creative ways to uproot longstanding systems of inequality and discrimination.

During a global pandemic, the racial disparities in the healthcare system have become harder to ignore, according to Sen. Richard Pan (D- Sacramento), a medical doctor who is the author of SB 17.

“Extensive research has identified racism as a public health crisis leading to significant health disparities, including infant and maternal mortality, chronic disease’s prevalence, life expectancy and now COVID mortality,” Pan said. “The state needs an independent body to hold us accountable by examining California’s policies and budget with the goal of achieving racial equity and ending systemic racism.”

People like John Kim, Executive Director of Advancement Project California, believe that the structures that hinder people of color were designed to do so and the solution should be to redesign these structures.

“All of the racial inequities we’ve seen in this pandemic have been decades in the making. We can no longer react to the symptoms of systematic racism or nibble around the policy edges,” Kim said. “Passing SB 17 and establishing a State level Office of Racial Equity is crucial to excavating the intersectional nature of structural racism baked into this state’s public systems and policies. A fully resourced and appropriately authorized office is a powerful mechanism not only to stem the tide of bad, racist policies but also to generate new pathways to close the opportunity gap for communities of color throughout the state.”

Another equity-focused piece of legislation making its way through the legislature is Senate Bill 2, which is essentially identical to last year’s Senate Bill 731. It is meant to bar police officers who have been fired for misconduct or charged with one of a set of specific crimes from serving and protecting in another precinct in California.

As it stands currently, officers that fit into this category can still serve in other counties in the state.

SB 2 is also known as the Kenneth Ross Jr. Police Decertification Act of 2021, as it was named after the unarmed 25-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by police in Gardena in 2018.

“Only one police officer in the history of California has been charged, convicted and sent to jail [for police brutality] and that is Johannes Mehserle who only did 11 months for the fatal shooting of my nephew Oscar Grant,” Cephus “Uncle Bobby” X Johnson said during a virtual press conference for SB 2 in reference to the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant III in Oakland.

Senator Steven Bradford, who introduced SB 2, noted that other professions are held to a certain standard and law enforcement shouldn’t be any different.

“If last summer’s nationwide protests and calls for police reform have shown us anything, it’s that Californians want more than just a superficial change,” Bradford said. “If many professionals licensed in the state of California can have their certification revoked for committing serious misconduct or abusing their authority, then why not police officers?”

Assembly Bill 675 and Senate Bill 424 would create a “homeless hiring tax credit” as an effort to provide homeless people in California “access to meaningful employment.”

“I’ve been unhoused, I’ve gone through a bout of homelessness and I know what it’s like to want to get a job. To want to better yourself, but there weren’t a lot of resources out there, but thanks to [Los Angeles] county and this bill– we’re going to be able to bridge a gap between the business community and the homeless community,” said Lavena Lewis, the Black business owner of Vena Vena Handcrafted. “With being homeless, finding employment is key.”

And in Washington, Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) along with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) proposed a bill coined the “Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act” that set out to put a cap on the pay CEOs receive in relation to the working-class people who work for them.

“Americans across the political spectrum are outraged by the extreme gaps between CEO and worker pay,” it read on Lee’s press release. “According to a nationwide survey, the typical American would limit CEO pay to no more than 6 times that of the average worker. About 62% of all Americans – 52% of Republicans and 66% of Democrats – favor capping CEO pay relative to worker pay.”

This sounds like the first in a slew of equity-based legislative pushes so batter up, America. Maybe we’ll all be getting a swing soon.