Oakland, CA – Alameda Public Defender Brendon Woods pushed back on Friday, warning that Governor Newsom’s use of state lawyers to prosecute local cases will “fuel mass incarceration and the further devastation of Black and Brown communities.
“They’re trying to use a band-aid to fix a broken arm,” Woods said. “More prosecution and more police is not the solution here. We need housing, money for community-based organizations, higher wages, employment, as well as money for our schools, medical care and mental health.”
Woods is responding to the announcement by California Gov. Newsom and state Attorney General Bonta that they are sending lawyers from Bonta’s office and the National Guard to assist prosecuting cases in Alameda County and Oakland.
“People turn to crime because they have a sense of hopelessness,” Woods said. “Locking them up, taking away their prospects for employment and making their families’ lives difficult actually makes our communities less safe in the long run.”
The Governor’s office and prosecutor Pamela Price have had their own public exchange of words.
In a statement from Price on Friday, she said, “My office welcomes CalGuard prosecutors and the Department of Justice in prosecuting criminal cases generated by the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force and the CHP surge operation in Oakland. We hope the swift agreement reached between the DOJ and CalGuard yields equally swift results, and my office is willing to assist in that effort in any way possible.”
At the same time, Price said that since March, her office has received just 11 cases identified as “CHP surge” cases.
She said, “To the extent that there have been a large number of arrests related to CHP surge operations, our records do not reflect those cases being referred to this office for prosecution by either the CHP or the DOJ.”
Meanwhile the Public Defender’s Office on Friday said they are not aware “of a shortage of local prosecutors that preceded Newsom and Bonta’s announcement.”
They point out that “no new state funding was allocated to the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, despite the fact that increased prosecution will lead to more cases being filed and increased caseloads.”
The Public Defender’s Office budget is approximately $54.1 million per year; the District Attorney’s Office gets $96 million per year.
In fact, several weeks ago, the Public Defender’s Office added, “Gov. Newsom announced he was cutting the third year of grant money that funds the Public Defender’s post-conviction unit. That unit was created to implement a raft of new laws designed to reduce mass incarceration in California.”
In the past, they said, “California experimented with increased prosecution and harsher sentences. That led to mass incarceration and severe prison overcrowding.”
These efforts prompted numerous lawsuits, and eventually laws designed to reduce incarceration.
In addition, the office added, “the criminal system disproportionately targets Black and Brown communities, as well as poor and mentally ill people. Those groups feel the brunt of increased law enforcement along with the destabilization that follows getting arrested.”
Calls for crime crackdowns also embolden law enforcement abuses, such as the “Riders” and other scandals at the Oakland Police Department.
“We can’t keep doing this over and over,” Woods said. “We need different solutions.”
