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 Legal
to a trial by jury of their peers is completed. Think of the Central Park Five. (Editor’s Note: In the “Central Park Five” matter, five black and Latino youths were convicted of assaulting a woman in 1989 in Central Park and served sentences ranging from six to twelve years. All later had their charges vacated after a prison inmate confessed to the crime.)
What we do know is that the COVID-19 lockdowns happen to be coincidental to the increase in crimes and homicides. We know that after-school programs and other programs that served young people have been scaled back. We don’t know what impact this isolation is having on young people because we have never had an experience like this before. We know Black kids in South Los Angeles aren’t carrying Gucci bags, so there must be a major fencing network somewhere? We must take inventory of the homeless population, particularly those with drug problems. Before we simply say a “soft on crime” district attorney is the cause we need to examine what’s going on in our community. Rather than focus so much attention on prosecution, perhaps we should spend more resources on prevention?
I could argue that the previous district attorney didn’t find any police officers to charge with crimes. In a few cases, even when the police departments these disgraced officers worked for stated they were culpable of murder, District Attorney Gascon’s predecessor did not prosecute them! Again, a federal prosecutor prosecuted Ed Buck (a wealthy
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I read two books that altered my perspective on the criminal justice system in America. “The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander and “Just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson. I was particularly moved by author Stevenson because he has been able to actually save men from death row. In addition to reading their books, I had the pleasure of meeting both of these two great legal scholars.
Clearly, we have seen a spike in crime in our community. In order to address this spike in crime, we must use all the tools in the tool chest to solve the problem. I trust we won’t again simply resort to political scapegoating?
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The author, Roderick Wright, is a former member of the California State Senate and Assembly. He has developed affordable housing with the Inner-City Housing Corporation. He worked in the Planning Department of the City of Los Angeles. He also worked at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). Mr. Wright has been a rental property owner for over 40 years and is also a member of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and the Coalition of Small Rental Property Owners.




























































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