On the Front Lines, New Crime Law Builds Low Expectations

Much ado about nothing is the way some of those who know most about San Fernando Valley crime viewed the new federal crime law, a day after its signing. A defense attorney said the law’s addition of 50 crimes to the list of death penalty cases is silly. A deputy district attorney said its stricter gun controls will have little effect, especially in a state with already stringent firearms restrictions. A police commander said its additional police officers will have less impact than more crime-fighting equipment. But most of those interviewed welcomed the $13.5 billion the law includes for training and hiring new officers nationwide and applauded the $7 billion for crime-prevention efforts such as midnight basketball programs. The thoughts of four people with widely varied perspectives, all of whom agreed about just one thing: The law is probably more effective as a political weapon among opponents than as a crime-fighting tool for those in the trenches. As told to Times staff writer Chip Johnson.

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Capt. Bob Gale, area commander at the LAPD’s Foothill Division, supports the idea of pairing funds for meaningful social programs with the plan to beef up local police agencies.

I don’t know if I have a lot of optimism as far as putting cops on the street because, if this is a one-time payment, we can train officers, but how do we pay for them year after year?

What I’d like to see is more much-needed equipment, black and whites (patrol cars), modern radios to replace our antiquated system. We need to computerize all our stations and upgrade our crime-analysis tools, and put more effort toward problem solving and community policing. If we had the funds to do that, we could accomplish a lot more.

L. A. is so under-policed we need to make the resources we have here--the cops--a little better-equipped.

I just bought four computers from money donated by our community sponsors--a $4,500 computer and three word processors for report writing. These are luxuries that the city cannot afford. But we can’t afford not to have it.

Until we know hard numbers, it will be hard to predict how this will help, but any help the federal, state or local government is willing to give us, I’m happy to receive it.

We do need to have programs that people from impoverished areas and areas of high unemployment can go to to learn trades and get jobs and lead them away from lives of crime. It would be irresponsible to build more prisons.

It’s frustrating to arrest the same people day in and day out and have the city attorney’s or district attorney’s office not file cases based on a dollar amount or how minor the injuries were.

We encounter a lot of people who are just opportunists, and maybe if they had a decent job and could provide for their families they wouldn’t be engaged in crime.

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LeRoy Chase, executive director of the Pacoima Boys & Girls Club of the San Fernando Valley, welcomes the chance to compete for additional federal crime-prevention funds.

We have numerous nonprofit organizations around the city that have to juggle their finances. I hope the crime bill gets money to social service agencies. I can think back to the ‘60s and ‘70s, when we did have more money. It did have an impact.

There has been a drop from the opportunities provided young people under community grants in the 1970s and what is provided today. We were able to provide more opportunities in recreation, and I think that it’s important that we address a young person’s leisure time, and I hope the bill provides money so we can provide positive opportunities and outings for young people.

I think that Democrats, Republicans and independents are going to have to get together and realize that we have some problems, and we need some dollars to work with. We’ve had tremendous burdens placed on nonprofit organizations, and the doors we knock on today, well, we find very little money there.

It’s disheartening when you see the amount of money that’s leaving this country while we go without. And that’s also a hard thing to explain to a young person who has no opportunities. It’s damned difficult. I’m not saying foreign aid isn’t important, but you have to take care of home first. It’s becoming a nightmare because the resources are dwindling at the same time that costs are increasing.

We currently have an alumni program--young people over the age of 18 or 19. I have one young man who is in his 30s. The closest thing to the midnight basketball league in the East Valley would be our program, which used to run until 10 p.m. But we had to cut that back (to 8 p.m.) because of finances and safety concerns. Everything has a dollar sign above it these days.

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Steve Cooley, head of the Los Angeles district attorney’s Van Nuys office, believes putting more police officers on the street is the only aspect of the law that will count for Los Angeles residents.

I don’t know that this will appease anyone other than those who advocate stricter gun controls, but that will not necessarily have an impact on local crime. There is certainly a crime-prevention aspect that will result in billions of dollars being committed to some worthy programs, but to characterize some aspects of it as a crime bill is a mischaracterization.

What you have here is a crime bill with many aspects that are not consistent with each other or law enforcement-related.

It will have little or no impact on local law enforcement or courts.

In my branch (of the district attorney’s office) in San Fernando, which is one of 11 branches, we file 300 felony cases a month. That’s our average. The volume is at the county level.

Even though they have 50 new statutory provisions that will allow for seeking the death penalty, I believe that the actual number of new death cases we handle will be minuscule compared with the number prosecuted by county prosecutors in state court. It’s the nature of the jurisdiction.

There is obviously seed money for the hiring and training of police officers. That is important. My understanding is that will be paid for ultimately by local taxpayers, and that’s fine with me. That’s the only true meaningful aspect of this crime bill, and even then it has to be put in the local perspective of city taxpayers.

That’s the only thing aimed at controlling crime. The feds spent a lot of money over the years on programs that have not done much that we can see or measure. It’s speculative. It’s just another social program.

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Harland Braun, 51, a defense attorney located in Century City who recently represented former Los Angeles Police Officer Ted Briseno against charges of beating Rodney G. King in Lake View Terrace. Braun thinks locking up more people is barbaric.

I think the thing is so silly. Like the ‘three strikes’ bill is not going to do anything in Los Angeles. Fifty more death penalty (crimes) is a joke. It’s just politics from the left and the right. Any politician knows it’s a fraud.

The only part that will have any effect is hiring 100,000 more officers. The certainty of being caught committing a crime is what deters crime, and that’s why 100,000 extra policemen will help. A crook doesn’t usually make huge calculations about what is the latest punishment.

Ninety percent of the people we’re locking up right now, all we’re doing is destroying the rest of the government by spending $30,000 a year to keep them in jail. A person who bounces checks and has two prior burglaries 20 years ago, he’s going to do 75 years. I would rather spend it sending someone to the university. Send him away for a year. It’s like the red scare, it’s like the fear of communism, witch hunts.

There is a genuine danger, and we are in greater danger than 15 years ago, but the answers are complicated and they don’t make for 10-second sound bites. If a politician comes up and says, “There may be a generation of kids to write off, but we may be able to save the next one, long after I’m out of office,” there’s no gain in that.

In five to 10 years there will be a meltdown in the criminal justice system, and then we will all sit down and re-evaluate it, rationally.

The way you inspire is by being rational, fair, and just. This law is irrational, unfair and unjust. It’s like a parent that under-punishes one child, over-punishes another and lies.