From Sacramento and Your Neighborhood

Greetings Neighbors! San Francisco has seen many a somber headline on the high number of homicides in our community. As Chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, I would like to share with you a few ways I am working on public safety matters legislatively in Sacramento and here at home in San Francisco.

We recently hosted our 2nd Bi-Annual Young Men’s Conference “Own It.” This important community conference included over a hundred young men from area high schools and community groups. Panelists and speakers—including Dwayne Jones (Mayor’s Office of Community Development), Shawn Richard (Brother’s Against Guns), Rudy Corpuz (United Playaz), Marquez Gray (CHALK), Manuel LaFontaine (City College San Francisco Peer Advisor), and Dr. Joe Marshall (an award-winning leader in violence prevention and youth development)—spoke to the participants about topics ranging from college and career preparation to violence prevention to coping with grief and loss. The goal of the event was to demonstrate the many positive opportunities available to help them to rise above life’s challenges.

In Sacramento I will be working on several pieces of legislation that I hope will improve our criminal justice system and help it to be more effective and responsive to the community. These bills include important reforms to our current parole system and an examination of the use of Tasers by our state’s law enforcement.

California’s rate of recidivism, the percentage of former inmates who return to prison within 18 months, is the highest in the nation at 67%. Since our Department of Corrections focuses primarily on punishment, rather than rehabilitation, the state does very little to prepare prisoners for their eventual release. I want to focus our state’s attention on rehabilitation programs and efforts. Given that 90% of inmates are released, our public safety depends on better preparing them and creating support systems to keep them successful once they have been released. As such, I have authored Assembly Bill 505, which would save roughly $60 million annually through reforms in the parole system. The savings from these simple reforms would then be channeled into public/private partnerships to provide re-entry services for soon-to-be discharged prisoners and parolees.

I have also authored an important public safety measure in Assembly Bill 1237. According to a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, 71 people in the United States and Canada died in incidents following police use of tasers between 1999 and September 2004. In the last year, that number has more than doubled, including 15 post-taser fatalities in northern and central California. Our bill will collect the information we need to make the best decisions about how to best use tasers to protect the public safety, requiring law enforcement agencies to report information about their training protocols and use of tasers to the Department of Justice. This will provide the information we need to ensure we have taser utilization policies that are truly protective of the public.

Additionally, I want to strengthen the programs that we know work. Here in San Francisco we have a model treatment program that is the first of its kind in California. Our mobile methadone maintenance treatment program has been operating since March 2003 in close cooperation with the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. The program is highly effective in treating the City’s estimated 15,000 to 17,000 heroin addicts by taking the services directly to where they reside in neighborhoods throughout the City. By treating these patients more effectively, we are helping to ease the burden on our criminal justice system. Assembly Bill 631 will allow the city to be reimbursed for its costs through MediCal saving us about $150,000 annually.

These programs and legislative proposals are but a few of the many actions I am taking as your representative in Sacramento, and as the Chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Do know that I am working hard on improving our public safety and criminal justice system. If you would like more information about these activities, or have ideas of your own, please feel free to contact my office here in San Francisco, 415-557-3013, or email me directly at Assemblymember.Leno@asm.ca.gov.