TV REVIEW: ‘JOURNAL’ FOCUSES ON THE CAREER CRIMINAL

Because of severe overcrowding in California’s prisons, two thirds of all convicted felons in California receive probation. There are about 250,000 criminals on probation in California.

By themselves, those crime statistics may not have much meaning. But they become rather frightening after watching “Prison of the Streets,” an informative if somewhat depressing “KCET Journal” report on new methods of stopping career criminals such as cocky hard guy Dee Stone, whose chilling interview opens the documentary tonight at 8 on Channel 28.

Stone nonchalantly says he’s committed more than 500 felonies in California--”Everything from the Big M to armed robberies, grand theft auto, to mayhem. . . .” He’s what criminologists call a “superfelon,” one of the 4% of the criminal population thought to commit more than 60% of all violent crimes.

Ordinary probation programs--which are overburdened with caseloads and paper work that keep probation officers mostly desk-bound--can’t begin to control hard-core criminals. (Stone says he was out on probation in the morning and had stolen a car and robbed a supermarket that night.)

But two new methods of intensive surveillance are being tested, which is what “Prison of the Streets,” written and produced by Martin Burns and containing some graphic language, focuses on.

In a pilot program in Los Angeles aimed at adult offenders, two veteran L.A. probation officers from the recently formed Intensive Surveillance Program dog their probationers (each has 50 of the worst offenders, as opposed to a normal caseload of 300 to 400). In Oxnard, a probation officer hounds juvenile offenders, dropping in unexpectedly to their homes and schools, as part of a more sophisticated Serious Habitual Offender-Drug Involved program (SHO-DI) that incorporates the police, court and social service system in an coordinated effort.

Both programs are new and their results are still being assessed by experts. But as the documentary shows interestingly and effectively, the intense surveillance of probationers seems to be a good way of reducing violent crime by making a prison of the streets for the Stones of the world.