Califrona Elections : Deukmejian Revels in the Anti-Crime Fight

Like great fortresses of concrete and steel, nine new state prisons are taking shape in the barren California deserts and fertile farmlands in the nation’s largest and most costly effort to deal with a burgeoning population of felons.

They are the first new prisons to be built in the state in more than 20 years--part of a $2.5-billion construction program and the most visible signs of the Deukmejian Administration’s hard-line record on law enforcement.

The Republican governor, whose political career was built on tough law-and-order legislation--including his authorship of California’s death penalty statute and the “use-a-gun, go-to-prison” law--has continued to press that agenda from the executive office, scoring major successes with an often unfriendly Democratic Legislature.

Chief among those successes was a 90% increase in funding for the state’s war on illicit drugs. But Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Deukmejian’s Democratic rival in the governor’s race, and other critics have maintained that Deukmejian’s focus on prosecuting drug violators has masked a less vigorous record in treatment and prevention of drug abuse.

Other aspects of the Deukmejian anti-crime record have generated less controversy, including a near 80% increase in spending for state law enforcement personnel and the creation of nearly a dozen programs to curb street gangs, child abuse and other forms of domestic violence. Deukmejian also has signed into law dozens of bills lengthening sentences for many classes of convicted criminals.

State spending to fight crime, which accounted for less than 4% of all general fund expenditures when Deukmejian took office, has grown to nearly 7%. That represents a 78% increase in dollars spent, including a 40% boost in the number of state law enforcement officers.

“He has never changed his philosophy,” said Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, a Democrat, who, like many of his colleagues, finds little to criticize among the governor’s career-long law enforcement efforts.

But that record has a flip side.

Overcrowded and violence-plagued state prisons are the bitter aftertaste of years of tough anti-crime policies, many of them instituted by Deukmejian. Described even by the governor as a “powder keg waiting to explode,” the alarming conditions in the state prisons have forced the Administration to funnel the bulk of its law enforcement dollars into expanding and building lockups.

Deukmejian literally revels in the fight, however, boasting at every opportunity that his four years in office have seen “over 22,000 criminals removed from the neighborhoods of California.”

Even as the state Senate moved to block a key element of his Administration’s prison expansion program--a new prison on Los Angeles’ Eastside--Deukmejian steadfastly refused to consider alternatives to incarceration, such as early release of felons, and he challenged the courts to continue locking offenders up in even greater numbers.

“Criminals have learned the hard way that when I promised them a California cooler, I wasn’t talking about the beverage,” Deukmejian deadpans in a favorite line that he inserts into nearly every law enforcement speech.

Amid this steady drumbeat of tough talk, California’s crime rate, which began to drop during the Administration of Democratic Edmund G. Brown Jr., is inching back up.

The effort to contain the state’s criminal element--at a yearly cost of $1.2 billion--has diverted millions from social welfare programs that some experts believe often help address the underlying economic causes of criminal behavior. At the same time, new studies show that California prison inmates are more likely to return to a life of crime once freed than prisoners from almost any other state.

In the eyes of some detractors, Deukmejian is thus in danger of failing to fulfill his often stated goal to make California “the first state where people can take the locks off their doors and the bars off their windows.”

Jeffrey Ruch, former senior consultant to the Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety, said: “A lot of what (the governor) advocated is coming home to roost. It’s not just that rehabilitation isn’t taking place, but in order to pay for these things, it means less job programs, less early education, less nutrition programs and, to an extent, these things contribute (to crime).”

Replying to those critics, Rodney J. Blonien, undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, insisted that neighborhoods “are safer because we locked these criminals up than they would have been if we hadn’t.”

But, he conceded, “it will still be awhile before we get to the point where people feel secure enough to take the locks and bars off their doors. When we will get to that point, we just don’t know.”

From the standpoint of money alone, Deukmejian’s commitment to law enforcement has been substantial.

But with polls showing California voters to be increasingly concerned about drug abuse, the spotlight has come to rest on Deukmejian’s efforts to eradicate drugs.

The Bradley campaign, convinced that “drugs is the crime issue,” has hammered away at the governor’s record, charging that as Deukmejian cracks down on drug pushers, too little is being spent to make sure that addicts are treated and thus diverted from a life of crime.

Delays Hit

“It takes months and months before you can get into some of these drug treatment programs,” said Trace Percy, who does research for the Bradley campaign.

Publicly, Deukmejian has all but ignored that criticism, saying it is evidence that Bradley reads public opinion polls but not the state budget.

Included within Deukmejian’s state budget for fiscal year 1985-86, for example, was $161 million for drug enforcement and a variety of treatment and prevention programs, including the Learn to Say No public awareness campaign initiated by the governor in late 1984.

In all, drug enforcement spending has grown by more than 90% since Deukmejian took office. That is at a much faster pace than the growth of treatment and prevention programs. But even here, expenditures are up 40%.

Attacks Are Felt

Nonetheless, Bradley’s attacks are having an impact on the governor’s campaign.

In recent weeks, Deukmejian has attempted to highlight his drug fighting record with an anti-drug appearance at a Berkeley school with Vice President George Bush and with the release of a three-page report detailing drug fighting steps taken by the governor throughout his public career. He also ordered drug testing for state employees in sensitive positions, such as the Highway Patrol, and pledged to double the number of state narcotic enforcement officers if elected to a second term.

In one highly publicized bill signing ceremony, the governor tried to take credit for 17 anti-drug bills passed by the Legislature. A dozen of those measures, however, were authored by Democrats, some of whom later charged that Deukmejian had done little to help encourage their efforts.

Taking the Credit

“The nice thing about being governor is that you get to take credit for what everybody else does,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), the author of a bill to crack down on so-called designer drugs. Katz added that the bill was actually opposed by the governor’s Department of Finance.

More recently, Deukmejian’s efforts were stung by the release of highly critical letters written by two statewide associations of counties that oversee most public drug and alcohol treatment programs. They accused the state of lacking direction in its anti-drug programs and of failing to provide enough money to meet the growing needs for treatment and education.

One letter, written in January by the County Assn. of Drug Program Administrators, charged: “The state’s leadership role has been ineffective, if present at all.”

Taking Action

Chauncey L. Veatch, who heads the state’s Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, said his office has taken “significant steps” to resolve those concerns, including relaxation of regulations to cut down on long waiting periods common for some treatment programs.

“When we took over,” he said, “California was 18th per capita in expenditures (on drug treatment). Now we’re 12th and climbing every year. That needs to be kept in perspective.”

Outside the highly politicized war on drugs, the governor’s efforts to enact other kinds of anti-crime measures have met with mixed results.

Deukmejian’s 1983 anti-crime package, which he described at the time as “one of the highest priorities of my new Administration,” contained 12 bills, the most significant of which were meant to speed up appeals in death penalty cases and overhaul the jury process. Those two were rejected by the Democratic-controlled Legislature along with seven others.

‘Pretty Busy Year’

“It was a pretty busy year, and we were facing a budget deficit and didn’t have everyone in place,” said Maureen Higgins, Deukmejian’s deputy legislative secretary.

Deukmejian fared better in 1985, when nine of 15 bills that he proposed were passed, including his highest priority measure--allowing mentally disordered criminals to be kept in custody beyond the expiration of their prison terms.

Other successful measures in the package were aimed at making prosecution of domestic violence and child-abuse cases easier. But the governor continued to lose legislative battles over his death penalty bill, proposals for major court reforms and tougher sentences for those convicted of cultivating large quantities of marijuana.

Ruch, the former consultant to Assembly Public Safety Committee, said the outcome was reflective of the fact that the Legislature, partly under the prodding of then-Atty. Gen. Deukmejian, had already toughened sentences to the point where there was little left to be done.

Imprint on Courts

It got to the point, Ruch said, where lawmakers and the governor “were really hunting. . . . Everything already had been criminalized.”

By contrast, aides said Deukmejian relished the opportunity being governor gave him to place his imprint on the state’s vast court system, which he had often denounced as too liberal.

Some court watchers had expected Deukmejian to appoint conservative ideologues to the bench. Instead, his appointees have won widespread praise even from some groups that criticize Deukmejian on other matters.

“By and large these have been middle-of-the-road, slightly conservative and certainly qualified, experienced judges,” said Rich Jacobs, special counsel on court matters to Atty. Gen. Van de Kamp. “They have been bright, articulate, well-experienced people overall, and we would have to give him high marks for his appellate appointments.”

Minority Record

Deukmejian is vulnerable to criticism for not appointing more women and minorities to top judgeships.

Of 372 judicial appointees named by the governor, 52 are women, 13 are Latinos, 13 are blacks and 11 are Asians. But critics--including jurists appointed by former Democratic Gov. Brown--point out that nearly all the nominations of women and minorities were to the trial courts, rather than to the appellate bench where legal precedents are forged.

The two exceptions were the elevation of Mildred Lillie of Los Angeles to presiding justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, and the appointment of John Arguelles of Irvine, a founding member of the Mexican-American Bar Assn., to the Court of Appeal.

Delayed Impact

Largely, however, Deukmejian’s influence on the judicial system has yet to be felt.

His appointees are still in the minority on the appellate level, controlling two of nine seats on the Supreme Court and 20 of 77 seats on the Court of Appeal.

In the few courts where the governor’s appointees do constitute a majority, Jacobs said there has been a subtle, yet visible, shift to the right. “They are definitely more conservative in the criminal law area than they were during the Jerry Brown era,” he said.

If voters turn out Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and one other Supreme Court justice in November, Deukmejian will have the rare opportunity to make that mark indelible. The governor has urged voters to reject Bird, along with Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph R. Grodin.

Prison Problems

Overall, four years of a tough law-and-order Administration has had its most visible impact on the prison system.

The state’s 12 prisons, which today hold nearly 60,000 inmates, are operating at 170% of capacity while being forced to absorb nearly 200 new inmates each week. The situation has triggered alarming levels of violence, including 23 “major disturbances” and more than 5,000 less serious incidents this year alone.

Amid new figures showing a disturbing rise in the percentage of felons who are rearrested after completing their prison terms, corrections officials concede that they have all but abandoned hope of rehabilitating most inmates.

Recidivism Runs High

In 1983, when Deukmejian took office, 44% of felons released from prison were rearrested. Today, estimates of the numbers returned to custody range from 50% to as high as 75%, according to one recent Rand Corp. study. Corrections officials blame that on the state’s escalating drug problem.

None of this has shaken the governor’s resolve to expand the state’s prison system. With nine new prisons either on the drawing boards or under construction and six major prison expansion programs well under way, the Administration has begun to recover from the headaches of early years in which poor management and lawsuits filed by opponents of some of the projects pushed the governor’s prison projects behind schedule.

“We really started putting the pedal to the metal in July of ‘85, and it’s really come on this year,” said Blonien of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency.

Cells Increasing

So far, the Deukmejian Administration has completed space for 6,100 new inmates, nearly half of that this year. Cells for 13,000 more prisoners are under construction as part of the governor’s plan to make room for 31,000 additional convicts by the end of the decade.

Major problems remain, including a long-festering dispute over where to locate a new prison in Los Angeles County. Until that is resolved, two nearly completed prisons are barred from opening--one in San Diego, the other in Stockton.

Also, when the Administration’s $2.5-billion prison-building program is completed, current projections show that the system still will be short of space for an estimated 20,000 inmates.

State Finance Director Jess Huff acknowledged that the heavy burden of financing prison projects has diverted money from what the Administration considers to be lower priority matters, such as health and welfare programs. He said this will continue. “There are going to be some tough choices,” he conceded.

‘Bill of Goods’

James W. L. Parks, senior consultant to the Legislature’s Democratic-dominated Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations, sees that hard-line stance as short-sighted.

“The public, in a sense, has been sold a bill of goods in the last 10 years,” Parks recently told committee members.

“I note that the crime rate is going up despite a record number of offenders being incarcerated. We keep spending and spending, and in 1991 we will still be short (prison) beds and the crime rate is still going to be high unless there are other big changes in the programs that are being cut to finance prisons.”

Blonien said he is convinced that the public will continue to support Deukmejian’s efforts to go after criminals and spend what it takes to make sure they are locked away.

“The reason government was formed was for protection, and people don’t mind paying for protection,” he said. “I think it will have to become a hell of a lot more costly before the public begins second-guessing.”