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Oct. 24, 2023 - Epoch Times
34:50
Prosecutor Explains Why California Can't Stop Crime | Jeff Reisig
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Do you think that crime is on the rise in California?
Whenever I read an article that suggests crime is down, I've been kind of shocked.
The upward trend in shootings and stabbings and more guns on the street, more gang activity.
It's been a stunning turn of events in California in the last few years for sure.
When we look at the statistics, it doesn't show a significant, like it didn't double or triple.
Do you think the public sees it or feels it?
What we've seen over the years is massive rises in theft But retailers and victims of those crimes are not reporting it.
17 years as an elected district attorney in California, I used to receive thousands of reports from some of the retailers, the big box stores, for petty theft.
We don't receive those anymore.
California has been taking a softer approach towards crime over the last decade.
There are questions surrounding these policies like the recent early release and zero bail.
My guest today is Jeff Reisig, District Attorney with Yolo County.
He also served as the President of California DA's Association.
Today, he will share with us the latest results of his studies on these policies and the deeper reasons behind the rise in crime and his thoughts on why the crime is rising in California.
The criminal justice system has been fundamentally changed in California.
Not in a good way.
I'm Siamai Korami.
Welcome to California Inside.
Jeff, it's great to have you on.
Welcome.
Thank you for having me.
You guys did a study on zero bail and showed that when there is no bail, the rate of crime goes up.
Can you tell us more about this study?
Right.
Well, recently we completed a study of what I call the Zero Bail Experiment in California.
And basically what was happening is if somebody committed a crime, they would be arrested, taken to jail, booked, and then immediately released from the jail without any conditions.
They'd be given a future court date and simply told, come back.
And they would walk out the door.
And unfortunately, what our study has shown is they were reoffending at an astounding rate, committing over 163% more crime than people who posted bail and committing 200% more violent crime than people who posted bail.
So the study showed that this policy was incredibly dangerous and, frankly, Destructive for California's public safety net.
Do you think that crime is on the rise in California?
Yeah, absolutely.
Crime's been on the rise in California.
The data shows that.
The Attorney General recently put out his annual report that showed, in particular, violent crime is on the rise all over California.
And frankly, I just see it.
I've been a DA 27 years as a prosecutor.
Last year, I was the president of the California DA's Association, meaning I was Working with all DAs in California on these issues.
And that was all we were talking about, was the upward trend in shootings and stabbings and more guns on the street, more gang activity.
It's been a stunning turn of events in California in the last few years for sure.
Do you think the public sees it or feels it?
Because the papers are not really, they're covering crime cases, but they're not really making a big deal out of it in California.
Yeah, it's been very confusing to me as well because I've seen some of the coverage on crime and I've been kind of shocked.
Whenever I read an article that suggests crime is down, I think, are they reading something different than I am?
And I've seen the Attorney General's study.
I've seen my own data.
And most importantly, I've been out in the community talking to community members and victims of crime.
The numbers don't lie.
The victims don't lie.
Crime is up.
Shootings are up.
Homicides are up.
There's more guns on the street than we've ever seen in my community and most of the region.
It's just not something that I think you can ignore.
If you actually do your homework and look at the data, but there's definitely something going on with a narrative about crime being down, which I haven't quite been able to understand what the motivation is on that.
And again, I think that the bottom line, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on.
Let's look at the data.
Let's make sure that it's accurate, thorough data, and then let's make decisions based on that.
That's not happening in Sacramento very often.
Often, in my experience, there are very emotional arguments being made to support policy changes based on a feeling more than based on data.
And I think that's just bad policy making.
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How much of the decision-making in Sacramento, the lawmakers, is based on data?
Is there a lot of data?
That's a great question, and I honestly believe that it's somewhat of a mystery what they're basing many decisions on.
I have seen, over the years, 17 years as an elected district attorney in California, I have seen policies, new laws passed in California based on no data, But just an argument, an emotional argument, and sometimes data which comes from very doubtful sources in my opinion, not official sources, not a government data bank or something, but an advocacy group.
And so that was again one of the reasons why I found it so important To put out the studies that I have on bail, because the lawmakers, the policymakers, whatever side of the aisle you're on, I don't care.
You need to have good data.
You need to have data that you can trust, that you can debate, and then make a decision based on that.
And I think that Sacramento's really lacking.
Good data when it comes to criminal justice and public safety policies.
You mentioned crime is up and with the statistics that came out, but are these statistics correct?
Because when we look at the statistics, it doesn't show as significant, like it didn't double or triple.
But from what we're hearing and what we see, sometimes they're locking up certain material in grocery stores.
Is it much higher than the statistics?
Are the statistics correct?
Here's the problem with the larceny data, with the retail theft data.
What we have seen across California, and I know this from talking to victims, the store owners, the business owners, is there is a massive under-reporting of retail theft in California.
So here's what I mean.
When the law was changed in California so that the threshold on theft was lowered and petty theft with a prior was eliminated as a felony option in California, the law change in California made less of a deterrent to theft.
And what we've seen over the years is massive rises in theft, but retailers and victims of those crimes are not reporting it because nothing happens.
This is a fact and I've spoken with some of the biggest CEOs of the biggest companies In California, I've spoken with mom-and-pop shops, and I've even spoken with people who've had their car broken into.
And the consensus is, why report it anymore?
Nothing's going to happen.
The law has been so watered down, they just take it.
And they're dealing with it internally.
In my county alone, just as one example, I used to receive thousands of reports from some of the retailers, the big box stores.
For petty theft.
We don't receive those anymore.
They're being handled in-house.
They're essentially writing them off as loss to their inventory.
This is happening around California.
It's a real thing and it's resulted in a massive under-reporting of the actual theft numbers in California.
And that's because of the changes in the law which decriminalized, lowered the threshold For theft.
You can go to any big city in California and you'll see it times a thousand.
You'll see in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Sacramento that you walk into a store now and most of the products that you might want are behind glass.
They're locked up.
Why is that happening?
Because the theft has increased so dramatically that these stores are being forced to take extreme measures to lock up toilet paper.
It's directly related to the decriminalization and then the increase in theft which has gone unreported.
You can't measure something that isn't reported.
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Now let's go back to the interview.
Now you're mentioning that you've been doing town halls and meetings and events.
And what do you hear from the people?
Because you may have a broader perspective.
Do you see people complaining about crime that didn't complain in the past?
Yeah, so I'm out in my community a lot talking to people.
Just regular people who own businesses and homes and are raising their families.
And in the last few years, the conversation, no matter where I go, is about the increase in crime.
And the increase in homelessness and the open addiction, the drug use, the crimes like autos being broken into, the things that we've all seen, frankly, in the media with retail theft where people are going in and scooping up shelves into bags and running out.
People are concerned, and they're way more concerned now than I have seen in a long, long time.
And I'll just give you this example.
Four years ago, I was running for re-election in 2018, and when I was walking through communities In my county then, which is, you know, the city of West Sacramento and several others, people weren't talking to me about crime as much as they were talking about reform.
You know, what I heard then was concerns about mass incarceration, concerns about reforms to help people get out of prison.
They wanted to talk about programs on mental health.
And that was all fine then, in 2018.
Recently, in 2022, when I ran for re-election, completely different story.
And questions from the same people in the same neighborhoods.
They wanted to know about what was I doing to combat crime, to combat violent crime, to protect their children, to protect the schools, the parks, their neighborhoods.
And I was stunned, frankly, that there was such a turn of events in such a short amount of time.
Regardless of, you know, their party, regardless of whether it was Republican or Democrat or Independent, the conversations were the same.
In 2022, crime.
People are very, very concerned in California.
And same people that you talked to four years ago.
So it shows that people are, in general, getting worried about crime.
For sure, yeah.
I mean, many were the exact same people that I talked to four years ago.
You know, and that's one thing as an elected official.
I'm out in the community.
I'm talking to people.
I'm talking to people who live in my community, who work in my community, who have children.
And those people have done a complete 180, most of them.
Most of them are really concerned about where we're going as a state.
And crime is the top of their list with the homelessness epidemic.
And it's related.
It's absolutely related.
And the addiction issues.
And frankly, the open decay of our streets.
I see it in my county.
We see it in Sacramento, which is my neighboring county.
You drive down these streets that you used to drive down, and it doesn't look the same.
It doesn't feel safe.
It doesn't look safe.
It's not safe.
And there's a real sense of what is happening right now in our state.
And that's what I've been hearing.
So you've been a DA for many years and from one end you're dealing with crime and you're actually, you said crime is going up.
From another end you're trying to help with new policies, but it seems like it's not kind of working and your job is becoming more difficult, right?
How does it, what does it feel like to be in this position as a DA? It's been really tough.
The last decade in particular, and I know I speak for many of my colleagues as well, DAs and sheriffs and law enforcement, to watch the system be deconstructed in a lot of ways.
The criminal justice system has been fundamentally changed in California, not in a good way.
Now there have been some good fixes, things that I've supported, but many of them have been, again, maybe well-intentioned, but fundamentally flawed in the actual implementation.
And that's frustrating to see, again, some of these policies, how they have resulted in more crime, more violent crime, more retail theft, more decay, more drug use, more people dying on the street.
These are all a result of bad policies.
Now, you have a lot of experience in this field many, many years now.
Why do you think that crime is going the direction that it's going?
It's a big question, because there's a lot going on.
And there's a lot going on that I think most people don't understand.
And I'll just start with kind of the basic, which is in 2014, there was a law that was actually passed by the voters.
It was called the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, Proposition 47.
And that law decriminalized hard drugs from felonies to misdemeanors, so things like methamphetamine and cocaine and heroin.
The penalty was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.
It also changed the theft laws so that the threshold for felony to misdemeanor was lowered.
That change in the law is at the root of so much of what we've seen in California since with the increase in homelessness and the crime associated with that, which, you know, honestly is connected to drugs and serious addiction.
These people who are really sick, frankly, they're addicted to these hardcore drugs.
And how do they support their habit?
Well, many, just telling you what the data shows, are stealing.
They're committing crimes.
So that's one big driver.
But the second part of that is there has been an ongoing effort in California to lessen penalties and release people from prison early.
And that has come from the legislature.
The governor's also been involved in promoting many of these programs, not only this governor, but the previous governor.
And I think they were well-intentioned ideas that have been executed recklessly, in my experience.
And you have people who are being released from prison who are not rehabilitated.
They're being released early, I should say, not just having served their sentence, but they're being released early with additional credits that are being awarded to them administratively, not in a public hearing, not through some public debate, but by the state prisons.
And in some cases, it's cutting their sentences by two-thirds.
And what happens then is these people who have been convicted and sentenced to prison for serious felony crimes, they're not being rehabilitated, they're being released early, and they're hitting the streets.
And guess what?
They re-offend pretty quickly.
Prop 47, that was nine years ago.
Are we passing other laws that will fulfill the impact five, six years from now, or is that something that has slowed down?
No, it's not it.
We have continued to see in the legislature the passage of laws regarding, particularly regarding the early release of prisoners, which has proven to be bad policy, and it's proven to be connected to increases in crime.
And unfortunately, that has not come to a complete stop yet.
You know, just in the last few years, there have been a flurry of laws that have come out of Sacramento that have continued the efforts to decriminalize things like gun use, which to me is astounding.
I mean, we didn't even talk about that.
So what does that mean?
Can you explain this?
Yeah.
I'll give you a perfect example.
And this is one of my great frustrations as a DA. So the fact that there has been an increase in gun violence in California goes without question.
I don't think anybody would disagree that we've had many mass shootings.
We've had an increase in gun violence in our biggest cities.
The data shows that.
And so I'm committed, along with my colleagues, to doing things to address the gun violence.
Well, one of the things that we can do to address gun violence and bring it down Is to make a deterrent to using a gun in a crime, to make it extremely clear that if you use a gun in a crime, you're going to be punished heavily.
And so recently, like last week in Sacramento, there was a bill before one of the committees that would have done exactly that.
It would have added additional time to somebody's sentence if they used a gun during the commission of a crime.
And it was unbelievable to me that it was killed.
In this committee, on a party-line vote, a bill that would have simply made it a deterrent to using guns in a crime.
It would have increased the penalty.
That, to me, is one of those head-scratchers.
I don't understand that.
We're all trying to do something to address gun violence.
Here is something that makes sense from a policy perspective.
Most people, I think, would agree with that, and it was killed.
Why was it killed?
Do they say you guys want to lock people up?
Is that...
Yeah, I mean, the argument against the bill from those who voted no on it in the committee was that we already have laws in place that punish people for the underlying crime, so we don't need to add more time because of the gun use.
And the flaw in that is, no, it's the gun use on top of the crime that makes it more aggravated.
And people should be dissuaded from even thinking about bringing a gun to a crime.
That's where the additional time comes in as a deterrent.
But their argument is, we already have laws on the books to go after the target crime.
And they also argue that these types of enhancements disproportionately affect people of color.
And that's an argument that comes up pretty much in every law in Sacramento now.
And it's, you know, an emotional argument for sure.
It's hard to, I think for many lawmakers to, you know, walk away from that.
But it doesn't change the fact that we are passing opportunities to really address gun violence in California in ways that will have an immediate effect and bring more accountability and safety to our communities.
And that just frustrates me.
Is this a reason why we're seeing so much more robberies with guns in L.A.? Because before we wouldn't hear about these things where you have somebody follow somebody home with a gun.
Now we're seeing more and more people coming up to people in a restaurant with a gun.
Is this why we're taking it too soft?
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, again, talking with my colleagues all over California, we have all seen more gun violence in our communities and more guns on the street.
I mean, in my county alone, we saw an 80% increase in felons in possession of a firearm.
There's more guns on the street.
They're using them more often in crimes.
And the reason why this is happening is because there has been both the early release of prisoners Because of these, you know, reforms.
And then you have a decrease in penalties in some of our largest jurisdictions, where you have DAs who have decided not to pursue enhancements and strikes, and they seek a minimal punishment.
And that drives the problem in some of the biggest cities in California.
And then you have the situation I just described to you where there is a confusing message coming from Sacramento.
Are we serious about going after guns or not?
And the message has been, we're not that serious when it comes to punishing people who use guns in crimes.
And that message is on the streets.
Clearly, on the streets.
We've seen more guns.
Now, are the lawmakers seeing this?
What is your experience with the lawmakers?
What are they doing about this in the Public Safety Committee and in general?
Yeah, it's a great question because I wonder often what are some of these lawmakers seeing that I'm not as a career prosecutor, as somebody who's plugged into the entire state with my colleagues who are DA's from tip to tip.
We're seeing, law enforcement seeing, something totally different than some of these lawmakers.
And I have some theories on it.
It's not all of them, by the way.
I mean, there are many lawmakers in Sacramento who are completely plugged into this, who get it and who are aggressively advocating for changes and for fixes.
I mean, that's what it is.
We need to fix things.
We need to roll back some of these policies, reinstitute some smart reforms, start tweaking, frankly, some of the things that were done that were just maybe well-intentioned but have been terrible policy failures, and reclaim our state.
So there are lawmakers in Sacramento who are committed to doing that, and they're looking at some of the data.
But then there are some lawmakers who just seem determined to keep following the same script of what I call ultra-progressive or ultra-reform-minded.
And many of those policies, in my experience, are driven by emotional arguments or things that just aren't really based on the data, but they can be very compelling to voters.
And many of these lawmakers, candidly, they're being supported by groups and organizations that have made these progressive reform policies their mission.
And there's a lot of money behind it, whether it's the drug decriminalization, the homeless industrial complex, there's a whole cadre of associations out there that are committed to essentially deconstructing laws and institutions in California that have historically been kind of the foundation of our public safety system.
Have you seen that yourself?
Have you experienced these organizations?
Absolutely.
I mean, as an elected official, I've had to run every four years for DA, and I'm now on my fifth term, which makes me one of the longest-serving DAs in California currently.
And over the years, I've encountered them.
I've been asked by them to fill out their questionnaires in anticipation of whether they would support me or not.
And what was really shocking to me long ago, because my eyes have been open to what's been happening for a long time now, is that many of these associations, and I'm just going to say, I think many are well-intentioned, but they have a view on policies and the issues that are just not based in reality or data, in my experience.
But they'll ask you in these questionnaires, do you promise as a candidate for this office to never, and then you can insert things, like never prosecute certain crimes like theft or drug possession or prostitution.
Do you promise as the DA to never, insert whatever it is, insert a hardline position, and they want you to say yes or no.
And it's only if you answer the questionnaire correctly will they support you, either through a direct donation as a candidate or, more importantly, as an independent expenditure, which means that there are these groups that are actually supporting candidates with big money, sometimes millions of dollars in independent commercials and advertisements, etc., to help these people get elected into office.
They're very powerful.
They're very well-funded.
They are well organized, and frankly, this is how they have been slowly winning some of the biggest jurisdictions in California with district attorneys.
And so I've had to deal with them.
I've won despite them because I do not capitulate.
I don't believe in hard-line stances on any criminal justice policy because the law is too gray in too many areas, and humanity and we as people are too complex to have a hard-line policy, and they don't like that.
And so I've never had the support, and I'm actually proud to say that, But I do try and stay in the middle on a lot of issues.
I try and work with everybody, I think, in the legislature.
Those groups will not work with me.
Do you have any specific example where you try to pass a law or you saw this in action?
I do.
And I'll just say, you know, a couple of years ago in 2020, I came up with an idea for my county, and it was a real simple idea.
And that was we wanted to create another path for people who were seriously addicted, who were committing crimes driven by their addiction, like, you know, auto theft or burglary or other things.
And the path that we wanted to create was one that was focused on treatment instead of prison.
But here's the key.
The treatment would be in a confined facility, in a secure facility, a hospital-like setting.
Someplace where somebody who was convicted of a crime, if they chose to, could go to a treatment facility staffed by doctors and treatment providers to get well.
And our goal was to get them well, to get them...
To help them go through the recovery path, instead of putting them in prison.
Exactly, because, look, sending people to prison who are seriously addicted, it's a temporary solution.
It's not the solution long term.
Because they're usually going to come right out of prison and re-offend because they're addicts.
They're sick.
They really are sick.
And they're going to start using drugs again and then start...
And so the idea was really that simple, like, let's create another path where we can focus on treatment right here at home.
So a lawmaker in Sacramento, who actually was very progressive, I talked to him about it, and he agreed to sponsor the legislation as a pilot bill, just for my county.
I'm one of 58 counties, we're medium-sized, we're right next to Sacramento, but he agreed that he would sponsor it for a short, you know, two-year pilot in my county.
We thought this was great.
Well, as we started to work through the process, what shocked me was how many opponents came out of the woodwork From across California.
Associations from the ACLU to the Statewide Public Defenders Association to major organizations, even on the national level, were lining up to kill this idea, this bill for my county.
In your county?
In my county.
And it was confusing to me because my question was, why would a national Association want to kill this bill in Yolo County, which I thought it was a good bill.
My friend, the lawmaker, very progressive, thought it was a good bill.
And it became clear to me that the reason that there was such an effort to kill the bill was because I think there was a concern, not think, I know, the concern was if it passed and if it worked in my county, it could be replicated everywhere in California.
And that would have an effect on some of the issues that these folks, these associations, have been working on, including Drug decriminalization, the early release of inmates, name it.
I mean, there's a whole slew of different issues that would potentially be affected by a successful program like my pilot.
So we fought.
Those associations, and they were powerful, and there were members of the Assembly and the Senate who were pressured heavily to vote against this bill.
Because they would lose their re-election or their support?
I mean, that's always the implication.
That, you know, when somebody, one of these powerful groups, these powerful associations that writes checks for candidates comes to their office and urges them to oppose a bill, there's an implicit message there, right?
And so, you know, that was the reality.
And so I've seen it in that situation, and I've seen it in other situations where I've been involved in sponsoring legislation.
And what happened to the bill, by the way?
So this is the amazing thing about that particular bill.
And it was called Hope YOLO. We gave it a name.
The bill ended up going through the committee process in both the Assembly and the Senate in Sacramento, and ultimately made it through all of the committees and went to the floor in each one of the houses for a vote.
And we were able to secure a unanimous vote from Democrats and Republicans to support this pilot bill, despite the opposition.
Now, ultimately it was because it was a pilot program.
You know, the argument was, give us a shot.
Give us a chance in this one county to do something radically different to help solve the problems that we are facing.
And I was really hopeful and encouraged that we had bipartisan support and people speaking out on both sides of the aisle on why we should try.
So in that situation, they overcame the resistance, the fierce resistance from the opponents of this idea.
And I'm not naive.
Ultimately, it was because it was a smaller county.
It was one county.
The bill passed, and it went to the governor, and the governor vetoed it.
And I was shocked, and I was saddened.
And in his veto message, he clearly stated, you know, the reason why he vetoed the bill is he had concerns about coerced treatment.
So, you know, shortly thereafter, Governor Newsom came up with Care Court, which frankly bears a lot of resemblance to the bill that we ran, our Hope YOLO bill.
And ultimately, as you know, Care Court has become the law in California.
It's focused on a different population.
Care Court's focused on seriously mentally ill, whereas our bill was focused on seriously addicted or people suffering from serious substance abuse disorders.
So, you know, this is a situation where I give Newsome credit in Care Court.
I really do.
I believe that Care Court and what The state legislature and the governor did with that piece of legislation.
It's a baby step, for sure.
But it's the right way that we need to move that involves compelling people who are really sick into treatment.
So that's the story of my bill.
Do you think the special interest got to the governor and pressured him there?
They couldn't stop the rest of the state, senators and leaders, and then they kind of put pressure on him too.
Yeah, I'm 100% convinced that they got to the governor for the veto.
There's no other reason I could imagine for him to veto the bill.
In fact, his veto message parroted back many of the exact same arguments that the opponents, had put forward through the whole process.
It was almost as if it was a cut and paste in some of the words that he used in vetoing the bill.
So, that's how the system works.
And I get it.
And, you know, that's politics at the highest level of California.
We were disappointed.
We're back this year with a new version of that bill.
Now it's called Hope California.
And we have multiple counties who were involved in this proposal.
It's basically the same as what I explained to you.
And we're going to take another run at it.
And we're going to hope that we have bipartisan support again for, you know, this radically different approach, radically different approach to addiction and crime.
And we hope the governor signs it.
And maybe, you know, now that he's signed Care Court and he's actually taken on some of those opponents himself when he...
Got Care Court through.
Maybe now he'll be willing to sign our bill and give us a chance to try something different to save California.
Jeff Reisick, the District Attorney of Yolo County.
It was great to have you on California Insider.
Thank you.
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