Public Employee Unions=Too Expensive?

Is a Public Employee’s Union in California raising the cost of the prison system?  Should the prisons be sold to private companies to save the states money?

In my last post, I explored the movement across the country to privatize the prison systems in many states.  We looked at the high cost of maintaining prisons and one of the major reasons why the cost is suddenly so high–longer prison sentences and less chance for parole.

Starting in the 1980’s legislatures across the U.S. decided to “get tough on crime” by adding prison sentences to crimes that previously didn’t call for them and lengthening existing prison sentences, reducing the time on parole.

As a consequence, the prison populations in most states have sky-rocketed and so have the costs.

Before I look at an NPR story, I have to disclose that I am a member of a public employee union along with the prosecutors and public defenders in the county where I work.

A fascinating report from National Public Radio investigated the prison system in California.  See their story at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?

storyId=111843426

Besides the increased prison sentences, they found a curious connection between the California Correctional Peace Officers Association–a public employee union–and the rising costs of the prison system there.  The union has become one of the most powerful political forces in the state.  Over the years, it’s contributed millions of dollars in support of tougher laws and longer prison sentences.  Since these laws passed, the number of union correctional officers has grown from 2,600 to 45,000.  The average salary in 1980 was $15,000.  By 2009 one out of ten officers made over $100,000.

Talk about an increase in costs!

NPR found that most of the funding to support new laws that increased prison penalties came from a political action committee that the union created for the purpose of  promoting a “Victim’s Rights Group.”  Question: why is a public employee union of correctional officers supporting victim’s rights?  And why should locking people away for longer time do much to help victims?

Today in California, most of the Corrections Department budget goes for salaries and benefits of the union employees. (70%) While just 5% goes for education and vocational training for inmates to give them job skills so that when they’re released, they don’t have to commit crime to support themselves.  To me, investing in job skills is actually going to help potential victims since the paroled inmates won’t be committing as many crimes.

I’m not saying that public employee unions have caused the same result in every state–but it sure looks like it in California.

What should we do about it?

Somali Women Wonder Where Their Boys Went

Not only in Minneapolis/St. Paul are young Somali men (so young, each one is almost a child victim) mysteriously disappearing, it’s happening across the globe.  In a recent article from the StarTribune by James Walsh and Richard Meryhew, entitled, “Jihad draws young men across globe back to Somalia,” www.startribune.com,  it appears that the recruiting of these men is actually world-wide.

The disappearance of almost 20 men here in Minneapolis in the last few years alerted officials and the FBI to the possibility of recruitng to fight in Somalia.  Since Ethiopia (Christians) attacked Somalia (Muslims) some of these men left the Twin Cities to go back to fight in a group called El-Shabaab.  (People think)  It’s a form of human trafficking.

You may ask why law enforcement here was worried about what happened in Somalia.  If the Somali young men could be recruited to fight in Somalia, could they be recruited to fight back here for a war on America.

Having represented the Somali community for many years in the courts, I’ve found them to be warm, intelligent people.  However, they do not trust many others outside their own tribe.  Even within the Somali community, there are disagreements among the tribes, with some people feeling they are better than others. 

If I have difficulty communicating with them (many speak English) because of this distrust, imagine how difficult it is for law inforcement to get reliable, accurate information about the disappearance of the young men.   To a great degree, law enforcement depends on informants for information.  The word sounds bad but can include almost anyone with access to the community. 

So the common theory is the young men are recruited to fight in their homeland.  What if this theory is correct but incomplete?

Could there be more to the disappearances than we’ve discovered so far? 

Let me know if you think there’s more going on than merely freedom fighting in Somalia.  I’ve got an idea that formed the plot for my new book, “The Concealed Enemy,” coming out in Fall of 2010.  What do you think was really going on with the disappearing men?

Defending Sex Offenders

I know this may sound odd, but one of the more common questions I get as a criminal defense lawyer is:  what’s it like to represent a sex offender?

After 30 years as a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve defended everyone you can imagine, charged with every kind of crime you can imagine.  Still, I have to say that sex offenders are in a category all their own when it comes to criminals.

I think the biggest difference comes from the fact that sexual assault is an “intimate” crime–not that the perpetrator wants “intimacy” with the victim as most of us would consider it.  Almost every other crime I can think of–robbery, theft of a car, assault, and even murder doesn’t involve such close contact with the victim.  Many are accomplished with guns, baseball bats, and other weapons–which usually are used at some distance from the victim.

Sexual assault is really “up close and personal.”  It takes a different type of criminal to commit this kind of crime.

I’m not a psychologist, but in my experience most sexual offenders aren’t really turned on by the sexual act.  Instead, it’s the power and dominance they have for a brief time.  Around men, quite often, sexual offenders are losers and unable to hang with men in easy relationships.  Most sexual offenders I’ve worked with are loners, misfits, or outcasts.  By assaulting women, they “prove” to themselves they are studs and attractive.

One particularly dangerous offender I represented years ago, before his sentencing for several rape convictions, bragged to  the probation officer he’d had sex with 100 women.  That statement showed up in the pre-sentence report to the judge.  At his sentencing, the defendant corrected the report to say he really had sex with over 200 women!!  (If true, I hope they weren’t rapes…)

Almost every offender I’ve represented has denied the act and blamed everything on the woman.  Often, they use force.  When the victim fights back, the offender can accuse the woman of “starting it.”  Even after the victims come into court and testify against the offenders and juries find them guilty, many still deny their guilt.

Guys who are “kiddie twiddlers,” who sexually assault children, are harder to work with.  The usual reaction I get is, “I know I didn’t do it.”  Then, even after I confront them with evidence through statements of the victims, forensic proof, and other witness’ statements, the offenders still deny everything.

At first, I assumed this was simply the usual human response to deny or minimize our guilt for acts we’ve done.  Now, I realize something more subtle is at work.

These men who assault kids find the act inexcusable, like  normal people do.  They think it’s so horrible that they, the offenders, could never possibly have done it because…well, because  “I could never do anything so horrible and gross.”  They block any memory of the act from their conscious minds–which is why they think they’re being honest when they say, “I didn’t do it.”

Any thoughts from you?

Ideas

People who work in the criminal field, whether as law enforcement or in the courtroom end of things, always say, “You couldn’t make a reality show about this stuff–it’s too real!”

The endless turning of human behavior is so unusual, it’s sometimes unbelievable.  For people who work in the criminal field, we know it’s not a TV show, so when something truly odd occurs, we’re amazed by it.

I was involved with a case of a large family who all lived together, although they lived in shifts, in a two-story home.  Adults and children occupied the house and some of the adults worked real jobs to support the group.  Others used government programs for support and others used criminal means to pay their share.

One uncle sold drugs to make ends meet.  He’d often do the deals in the back porch while the family ate dinner, for instance.

A particular evening, he invited the buyer into the house.  They moved into a bedroom upstairs to do their business.  Family members who were home told police, they heard a loud “pop” from upstairs and a few minutes later, the buyer came down and left.  No one seemed to notice that the uncle disappeared for the next three days.

They discovered him upstairs in the back bedroom, dead from a gunshot wound.  Apparently, no one, including the children, ever thought to look for him or to see what happened in the bedroom. 

True story.

Another case involved a father who had unusual ideas for disciplining his children.  When they wouldn’t clean their bedrooms as instructed, he went into each one and removed their pet gerbils from the drawers where the children kept them.

In order to teach them a lesson, he took the little animals outside and called for the children to come out with him.  When they stepped into the back yard, the father pulled out an air gun with a wide barrel.  He loaded the gerbils into the air gun and shot them across the back fence into the neighbor’s yard.  The neighbor, as you can imagine, became upset when two rat-like animals flew into his yard unexpectedly.

The neighbor returned the stunned critters.  The father was so mad, he took the dazed gerbils and drowned each of them in a pail of water before the kids.

True story.

For a writer, it’s wonderful to transfer these stories into novels.  My only problem is I’m afraid no one will believe they really happened!

Do you have weird or unusal stories that could make good plot lines in a book?  Please let me know.

How can you defend a guilty person!?

It’s the question I get most of the time:  How can you possibly defend someone you know is guilty?  Especiall if it’s a horrible crime.  It’s easy to say “it’s my job,” “everyone has a right to a trial,” “I have an ethical duty…”  All true but then there’s the human part of every lawyer that is repulsed by the crime and/or client also.  That’s the hard part.  There have been a handful of creeps I’ve represented over the years that would make your/my skin crawl!

Technically, my job defending anyone is to force the State to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  If I have personal doubts as to my client’s innocence, I never even breathe the word “innocent.”  Instead, I remind the jury to evaluate the State’s case; the defendant is presumed innocent by the system.  The funny part is that I’ve rarely had a client admit they were guilty.  Even if it looked pretty obvious, they maintained their innocence.  And the more you get into a case, the murkier facts often become.  So many times, I’m not sure who’s innocent or guilty.

Maybe the best way to let you know how this feels is to tell you a story of a case I tried several years ago.

It involved a young man, about 17, who loved a girl and had a child with her.  They were both poor and struggled to make ends meet, take care of an infant, and try to put food on the table.  They lived together and one night when the boy–I’ll call him Jim–came home after looking for a job during the day, he found his girl having sex with another man on the couch of their apartment.

Jim erupted in anger and pain.  First, he kicked the other man out then turned on the woman.  A fight started and he strangled her to death by choking her with his hands.  That was gruesome enough but afterward, to divert attention from him–the obvious culprit–he stripped her body, spray-painted it in gang graffiti, and left her in the middle of an intersection to make it look like a gang crime.  At her young age, she was a child victim herself.  Talk about true love…

After having been charged with Murder in the 1st degree, he was certified and transferred to adult court where I met him.  Because the crime was so heinous and the proseutor’s case was so strong, they didn’t offer Jim any kind of a plea bargain.  Like any person looking at life imprisonment, Jim found it hard to plead guilty, even though he eventually admitted he killed her.  We set the case for trial, which was his right to demand.

From my standpoint as his lawyer, sometimes the charging decision made by the prosecutor does not fit the crime.  In other words, maybe the accused person is not guilty of Assault 1 but is guilty of Assault 3, a lesser crime with a shorter penalty.  That was the strategy in Jim’s case.  I had two goals:  maybe the jury would have sympathy for the young guy and convict him of something lesser or the facts, as determined in a trial throught he witnesses, wouldn’t warrant the full Murder 1 conviction.  I didn’t know but we launched into the trial with this crime of the heart.

When the Medical Examiner who’d performed the autopsy on the victim testified, he broke the case wide open–to Jim’s favor.

Since I hate to write lengthy blogs, I’ll pause for now and continue the story with my next one.