Pubdate: Wed, 08 Sep 1999
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian (CA)
Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Bay Guardian
Contact:  520 Hampshire, San Francisco, Ca 94110
Fax: (415) 255-8762
Website: http://www.sfbg.com/
Author: A. Clay Thompson

GENERATION INCARCERATION

A State Ballot Initiative Would Send Thousands Of California Kids To Adult
Prisons.

DESPITE ENDLESS RERUNS of the Littleton shootings and the constant barrage
of sensationalistic headlines, teenagers today are not all on the verge of
murdering or being murdered. In fact, kids today are committing far fewer
crimes than they did five years ago. In San Francisco the downward trend
began in 1989 dropping from 2,404 charged juvenile offenses that year to
1,620 in 1998. And we're not just talking about less shoplifting and
tagging: Since 1990 the youth murder rate has dropped nearly 50 percent.

The nationwide crime decline doesn't seem to have registered with Pete
Wilson. The former California governor (and perennial presidential
possibility) has dumped about a million bucks into the Gang Violence and
Youth Crime Prevention Act, a ballot initiative set to go before voters
next March.

Seven months before the election, Wilson's latest proposal is already
raising hackles in the Bay Area. Criminologists, youth advocates, and teens
themselves are angered by what they see as draconian new crime-control
measures. Young people around the bay are already organizing to combat what
they're calling the "War on Youth" proposition.

"This initiative is attacking young people, locking us up not funding
education, just incarceration," said Rebecca Wong, 17, of Concord. "[It's]
targeting and stereotyping us as criminals."

No hearings

The 43-page act would rewrite vast swaths of the state's juvenile and
criminal justice codes. Possibly the most significant provision is one that
would make it easier to try minors in adult court.

When a youth between the ages of 14 and 17 is charged with a serious
felony, a judge usually holds a hearing to determine whether the kid is fit
for the reform-oriented juvenile justice system or should be dealt with in
a purely punitive manner and be sent to adult court. The prosecution and
the defense each have a chance to make their case and present witnesses.

Should the case go to adult court, a conviction typically means hard time
in the state pen. A sentence in juvenile court, on the other hand, is
likely to lead to a youth-specific boot camp or lockup with at least a
semblance of rehabilitative programming.

But if Wilson's initiative passes, those "fitness hearings" will be
eliminated. District attorneys will have free rein to charge minors as
young as 14 with violent felonies in adult court (see "The Lost Boys,"
1/27/99).

The measure contains a host of other tough-on-crime measures aimed at
youth. It would make graffiti damage of more than $400 dollars a felony,
broaden Three Strikes and the death penalty, make it harder to seal
juvenile court records, beef up juvenile probation practices, expand the
definition of a gang member, and stiffen sentences for gang-related crimes.

"It doesn't address the real issues. The reason youth get into trouble is
poverty. Youth from ten to seventeen are the poorest age group out there,"
18-year-old Ortega Yarborough of UNYTE (Unity Now! Youth Together for
Empowerment) told us. "A lot of the things they do start about as a means
of survival. They get caught in the drug game tying to get money to have a
better life." Yarborough also pointed out the possibility that law
enforcement officers will mislabel youths as "gang members."

Wilson tried to push most of the initiative's proposals through the
legislature during his days in Sacramento. In the fall of 1998 he decided
to bundle about a dozen failed bills together and head for the polls,
gathering 640,000 signatures to qualify for the March 2000 election.

According to Commonweal, a nonprofit organization that has studied juvenile
justice for the past decade, such provisions would "push more 14- and
15-year-olds into adult courts and state prisons" and "require mandatory
incarceration for many juvenile offenders."

Locked in

"Wilson's picking on poor and minority kids," rails Commonweal's David
Steinhart. According to Steinhart, the bills that now comprise the
proposition "couldn't make it out of a single committee in the legislature.
We want to make the public aware of how massive this is, and how the law
will be locked in for perpetuity. The legislature won't be able to adjust
any of it without a two-thirds vote."

The Legislative Analyst's Office, the nonpartisan state agency charged with
estimating the cost of new laws, has given the proposition less than
glowing reviews. "This measure will result in ... costs to the state of at
least hundreds of millions of dollars annually and one-time costs of at
least several hundreds of millions," according to the office's report on
the initiative last year.

Mitch Zak, spokesperson for the campaign to pass the initiative, told us
the referendum is a response to "the threat that exists every day of youth
violence and the increasing threat of gang violence."

Zak told us the proposition's supporters would like to see more programs
aimed at preventing youth crime. But, "for those who are not reached by
those programs, if they make the very conscious decision to break the law,
there have to be consequences," he said.

Despite the evidence, Zak doesn't believe violent crime is diminishing.
"The stats don't bear that out," he told us.

The California District Attorneys Association is pushing the proposition.
Wilson has also tapped his friends in corporate America to underwrite the
campaign. Chevron, Unocal, Transamerica, PG&E, and Hilton Hotels CEO W.
Barron Hilton have all contributed $10,000 or more.

Asked why an oil company would throw money at a criminal-justice
initiative, Chevron spokesperson Dawn Soper told us the corporation ponied
up $25,000 at Wilson's request. "Generally, the [propositions] we become
actively involved with would have some sort of impact on our core business
of selling oil," she said.

The bulk of the funding, however, has come from Wilson's own war chest.
Much of it has gone into signature-gathering; the most recent campaign
filings show a $180,000 deficit.

While the former governor may be running low on money, the opposition is
just getting mobilized. Usual suspects like Coleman Advocates for Children
and Youth, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the ACLU, the Center
on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, and the Youth Law Center are lining up
against it. On the streets and in the schools, local youth groups like
Concord's C-Beyond, San Francisco's Third Eye Movement, Oakland's UNYTE,
and the Bay Area-wide Critical Resistance Youth Force are making the
initiative their number-one priority. More than a dozen events have already
been scheduled for the Bay Area, including a walkathon, a "Hip-hop vs. the
Police State" gig, and a statewide youth summit.

There are rumblings that George Soros, the billionaire financier and patron
saint of criminal justice reform, may contribute some cash to help defeat
the initiative. But at this point Wilson's opponents have no political
action committee and no statewide campaign for California's 33 million
hearts and minds.

"The bane of these things is that you have to raise money," said
Commonweal's Steinhart. "To beat an initiative in a state the size of
California you need a statewide strategy; at this point we haven't got that."

Cassi Feldman contributed to this report. 
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