Recidivism

It happened again at a Taco Bell. The old way of thinking, the criminal voice, wouldn't shut up inside the head of Ken Layton. Yeah, take out that punk kid, beat the crap out of him, show that pimply faced idiot he ain't nothin' and you're still Folsom Kenny Layton. He was standing in line at the fast-food joint, behind an overwhelmed woman with an unruly child. She was complaining about her order, and the kid behind the counter kept putting her down. "He was rude," Layton said. "Sarcastic."

California's $1-billion investment in drug treatment for prisoners since 1989 has been "a complete waste of money," the state's inspector general said Wednesday, and has done nothing to reduce the number of inmates cycling in and out of custody. One study of the two largest in-prison programs found that recidivism rates for inmates who participated were actually a bit higher than those of a group of convicts who did not receive treatment, Inspector General Matt Cate said.

The most comprehensive assessment of California's landmark effort to treat drug users rather than jail them has found that nearly half of offenders sentenced under the program fail to complete rehab and more than a quarter never show up for treatment. The high failure rates have prompted a growing number of critics to call for jail sanctions for defendants they say take advantage of the program's lack of penalties. Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36 in November 2000.

Convicted drug users in California are more likely to be arrested on new drug charges since Proposition 36 took effect than before voters approved the landmark law mandating drug treatment rather than incarceration, according a long-awaited study released Friday.

Fewer than 40% of the inmates released from state prisons in 2003 were back behind bars one year after their release, the lowest rate in a quarter of a century, corrections officials announced Monday. California's two-year return rate, which some experts consider a more useful barometer, also has declined, reaching its lowest point since 1991. That number has been dropping steadily over the last four years. Of the 54,877 inmates who were paroled in 2003, a little more than half -- 51.

Working from research showing that 10% of criminals commit up to half of all crime, Los Angeles police officials and prosecutors have agreed on a program to seek the stiffest possible penalties for the most frequent repeat offenders, even for relatively minor crimes. The so-called 10 percenter program, which could begin operating in Los Angeles County courtrooms this summer, aims to reduce crime on the streets by keeping repeat criminals behind bars as long as possible. Police Chief William J.

Mario Moreno should still have been behind bars the night he climbed into the passenger seat of a stolen car with two fellow gang members. He was carrying a rifle, some cartridges and, in his jacket pocket, a bag of marijuana. "Let's go do this," the car's driver recalled Moreno saying as they headed into the turf of a rival black gang. They drove by a liquor store at 89th Street and Central Avenue in South Los Angeles. Two older black men were standing outside.

Bertha Cuestas was standing outside her Highland Park apartment scratching off an instant lottery ticket when veteran Los Angeles Police Department Officers J.C. Duarte and Harold Marinelli spotted the 50-year-old from their patrol car. They had been arresting Cuestas for prostitution and drugs since their days on the vice squad in the mid-1990s. On this warm October afternoon, she was wanted for failing to report to the judge in her most recent drug case. "Why didn't you go to court?"

Five percent of Guantanamo Bay detainees have participated in terrorist activities since their release from the U.S. military prison, the Pentagon said Tuesday. An additional 9% are thought to have joined -- or rejoined -- the fight against the United States and its allies, according to Defense Department data released amid a political fight over where to send the detainees if the prison closes in January as planned. Constitutional scholars have long cast doubt on the Pentagon's detainee data.

Re "Parole in California: It's a crime," Current, April 23 The true crime is how much money is wasted each year by PhDs doing criminal justice research such as the opinions of the two authors of this article. Recidivism, and in particular "rehabilitation," in California has always been a joke in our law enforcement communities. As a taxpayer, I understand the dynamics of tail (unions) wagging the dog (administration). But even sadder is to read a comment such as: "But there's no denying that our high recidivism rate wastes human opportunity and disrupts family life in unquantifiable ways."