Many locales have used money from realignment to hire more prosecutors, more law enforcement officers, and even build more local capacity for the county jails. Reports the San Francisco Chronicle this week, “The state gave San Francisco $5.8 million for the first nine months of the program. While some district attorneys around the state hired more prosecutors, [San Francisco District Attorney George] Gascón hired Luis Aroche with a portion of his office’s $91,000 share.”
Luis Aroche is a 34-year-old former gang member, who was hired by DA Gascón in February as an “alternative sentencing planner.”
Describes the Chronicle, “In what may be a first in the nation, San Francisco prosecutors negotiating plea deals for nonviolent felons are conferring with an in-house social worker who emerged from his own checkered past.”
The Chronicle continues: “If Aroche’s background is unique, so is his role. Traditionally, prosecutors focus on punishment, but Aroche seeks to give offenders what they need to live productively, whether drug treatment, education or housing.”
Mr. Gascón is himself non-traditional. He was appointed by former Mayor Gavin Newsom to succeed Kamala Harris, who had been elected as Attorney General in November 2010.
Mr. Gascón, 57, was born in Havana, Cuba, before immigrating to the US at the age of 10 and settling in Bell, California, where he dropped out of high school. He would serve in the military for three years and earn his high school diploma.
He would eventually get a bachelor’s degree and go to Western State College of Law.
He originally joined the LA Police Department before becoming the Chief of Police in Mesa, Arizona, where he clashed with Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his anti-immigration policies.
In 2009 he became the Chief of Police in San Francisco before his appointment to DA.
Mr. Gascón “believes the reliance on punishment has been a costly failure. The idea is to push considerations of rehabilitation forward in the trial process, allowing them to influence the outcome.”
He believes that Mr. Aroche’s past gives prosecutors insight that they would lack if they simply rely on rap sheets and penal codes.
“Where is this person going?” Mr. Aroche asked. “Does this person have anger management or substance abuse issues? Is this person homeless? All those questions, prosecutors never really got so involved in.”
“That’s part of what makes Luis very special for us,” Mr. Gascón told the Chronicle. “When he’s talking to a prosecutor about a kid that deserves a second opportunity … he’s looking at it clinically, as someone who has been involved in intervention, but he’s also looking at it as someone who was there himself.”
The Chronicle reports that Mr. Gascón hired Mr. Aroche with state funds from AB 109. Under that plan, those convicted of nonviolent and non-serious felonies such as theft and drug dealing now serve time in county jail instead of state prison.
“The changes were welcome in San Francisco, where leaders see realignment as a chance to cast the city as a model for progressive justice,” the Chronicle reports.
The question is whether such alternative programs could prove useful in other counties like Yolo County.
There is a natural divide in how best to approach these questions. Historically, defense attorneys have cited “environmental factors” that drive people to commit crime, while prosecutors tend to talk about free will, the Chronicle writes.
It is clear that not all district attorneys are going to buy into this approach.
“Prosecutors should not be turned into social workers,” said Harold Jewett, a senior deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County.
“I think a vast majority of prosecutors subscribe to the idea that there’s still a reason for jail,” he said. “One is public safety, but the other one is punishment – that there is some rehabilitative effect of making sure people understand there is a consequence that they’re not going to like for the crimes they commit.”
But Mr. Gascón has a different background than many and believes that the traditional system only serves to harden inmates. “The most dangerous criminals still need to be locked up, he said, but others can reform themselves with the right prodding.
“Every time that you can peel someone away from that life … you’re automatically going to make your community safer,” Mr. Gascón said. “Not only are you helping this person, but more importantly, you’re helping everybody else.”
Others in the system agree.
The hiring “symbolizes a sea change,” said Wendy Still, the head of adult probation in San Francisco, who believes rehabilitation assessments early in the court process will eventually become the norm for defendants.
“What prosecutors have typically focused on are the details of the crime, not the details of the rehabilitation,” Ms. Still said. “You have to do both.”
San Francisco’s Public Defender, Jeff Adachi, called the hiring “an important step in considering social and economic factors in deciding how cases should be resolved.”
Mr. Aroche himself is a story of perseverance of crime and redemption worth reading. For our purposes, however, finding ways to think outside of the proverbial box are well worth at least considering.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Reisig would never implement something like this – but he should It would change public view of him.
What a refreshing point of view. The concept that there might be a bigger goal than punishment for the prosecution. That perhaps a more important goal might be how best to protect society. That perhaps a better approach might be to determine whether or not an individual has the capacity to turn his or her
life around and help him to achieve that goal vs just proclaiming that punishment or fear thereof works to make society safer.