The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country, with nearly half of women with a felony conviction returning to prison—and a 61 percent recidivism rate overall. The majority of people returned to prison within the first year of release.
The first time I met the Little Hoover Commission was during a 2003 hearing, when the independent state oversight agency was investigating the broken parole system for a report to be presented to the California state legislature. I didn’t know what to expect when I went to Sacramento to watch the hearing, but I prepared myself for a bunch of typical bureaucracy, empty words that made it look as though people were doing something while everyone knew that absolutely nothing was likely to happen.
Instead, I was blown away. The Little Hoover Commission began by saying, “California’s parole system is a billion-dollar failure.” You couldn’t get more direct than that. They didn’t shy away or limit themselves to a wish list of fixes. Witnesses testified to the antiquated system and to the absurdly large recidivism rate for parole violations, many as minor as missing an appointment because a letter with the appointment date went to the wrong address. The goal of the correctional system, they stressed, should and must be that people who serve time go on to be law-abiding, contributing citizens.
They offered doable and cost-saving fixes, such as: preparing inmates for release with educational, vocational, and drug treatment programs, all of which have been proven to reduce recidivism; linking the success of wardens with the success of exiting inmates; assisting parolees at the community level to find jobs and to stay sober; not automatically re-incarcerating someone for low-level parole violations; and looking to drug treatment programs as effective—and cost-effective—alternatives to re-incarceration.
As I listened, I once again thought of all the years I pointed a finger at my own weakness, believing I had innate flaws and couldn’t get my life together. Hearing all this, I wanted to cry. The system was broken, and it had set me up to fail. I just went down the path I was expected to follow.
I left Sacramento with hope that the Little Hoover Commission’s report, “Back to the Community: Safe and Sound Parole Policies,” would inspire a revamping of the parole system. The following year, the commission released a subsequent report, “Breaking the Barriers for Women on Parole,” with a photo of me at graduation on the cover.
But, despite the hearings and two reports filled with compelling and sound arguments and realistic solutions, parole continued operating in the same, broken way; business as usual. Eight years went by, and not only was there no progress, but California’s criminal justice system had worsened to the point the entire country took notice. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that overcrowding in California’s thirty-three prisons created conditions horrendous enough to violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Ordered to reduce the state prison population by more than thirty thousand inmates, California began a reshuffling act.
As part of this, the California legislature and Governor Jerry Brown passed what they called public safety legislation—Assembly Bill 109—to shift responsibility of nonviolent offenders from the state to counties. New offenders would be sentenced to county jails instead of state prisons, and people being released were to report to local county probation officers instead of state parole officers. Though the parole system was finally being dismantled, this was hardly the way the Little Hoover Commission had recommended. The changes being implemented weren’t long-term fixes that focused on rehabilitation and community support—these were work-arounds, duct-taping the whole, damn broken machine.
Along with the passage of AB 109 came a lot of government money into L.A. County. The sheriff got money, the Probation Department got money, and, eventually, the LAPD wanted to get in on some of the money too. None of this should have affected A New Way of Life, but it did, in dire ways.
For nearly a decade, A New Way of Life held a prison-aftercare contract from Walden House, which had since changed its name to Healthright 360. The contract now allotted us $42 a day per woman for housing, food, and transportation. For all this time, the contract had worked smoothly. But now, under AB 109, Healthright 360 was to report to the County Probation Department. They were now beholden to the government, and that, in turn, made A New Way of Life beholden too.
Suddenly, it was as if the intent of the entire aftercare contract changed. The Probation Department instituted rules to limit the women’s freedom. If a woman wanted to leave the house to visit her children or relatives overnight, she no longer sought approval from me, she now had to have a pass approved by the Probation Department. This meant that I had to request passes in advance—but the Probation Department was often slow in processing, so if a pass didn’t come back in time, I had to break the news to a woman, “Sorry, you have to tell your children you can’t see them.” The whole thing was damaging to relationships, tearing down the trust we were trying to build—trust between women and their families, and trust between the women and me.
Someone from the Probation Department routinely came by the house, and when I saw them nosing around, looking in closets and opening the refrigerator, my mind jumped right back to when I was a little girl, helplessly watching someone from welfare snooping around our rat-infested house. It got me in the pit of my stomach.
Things grew worse when the LAPD became involved. Wanting a slice of the AB 109 funds, the LAPD needed to figure out a way to insert themselves into the picture, so they kicked into action a small part of the legislation that allowed for compliance checks.
We found this out one day when the front door of A New Way of Life burst open and eight corn-fed police officers stampeded into the living room with guns drawn. One of the women, who was coming around the corner with her baby in her arms, was met with a 9mm pistol in her face. The police lined the women against the wall, handcuffed them, and searched the entire house, lifting up mattresses, going through drawers, claiming they were looking for drugs and guns, though there was no reason for the search, no tips or suspicion, no past issues with noncompliance in our home. But, under the rules of the contract, if they didn’t come hunting, they didn’t get paid.
I was stark-raving mad. I called a meeting with the watch commander, the sergeant, and the lieutenants. I explained why it was important for the women to feel safe, that raiding the house was uncalled for, we were law-abiding citizens, and these were women who were there seeking help and a safe place to live. “When we see cops, we don’t see protection served,” I said. “We see trauma, we see harassment. When these women are automatically viewed as guilty and treated like criminals in their home, I’m violating my promise to keep the home safe.” As a solution, I asked if we could make appointments for the police to visit—not raid—the house, and to interview—not handcuff—the women.
“No,” I was informed. The police mandate was to enter unannounced. The protocol was to handcuff and search the house. I left the meeting saying I wasn’t going to allow the police in.
“If you don’t want to play,” they replied, “don’t take the money.”
Not long after, four police cars cruised up to the house. Out stepped eight officers, handcuffs clanging. The women did as I had instructed: they locked the doors and politely said they couldn’t allow anyone inside.
The police were bewildered about what to do next, so they sat outside. As soon as I got the call from the women, I hurried over from the office. On the front lawn, the police and I got into it. “There’s $164 million that is supposed to be spent on community-based organizations and housing,” I said. “These raids are a complete waste of AB 109 money.”
To my surprise, one of the officers agreed with me. Still, there was no resolution. They were trying to do their job; I was trying to do mine.
I went to the board of supervisors, I went to the city council, I went to State Senator Holly Mitchell, I went to the Los Angeles Times. And then, by chance, something happened. L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and I had been working closely together for many years but he’d never been to the house, so I invited him over. He showed up with the CEO of L.A. County, William Fujioka. We sat in the living room, drinking coffee and talking with the women. Suddenly, there was commotion from our second house a couple doors down. The police had burst in for a surprise AB 109 check and were handcuffing women. I hurried over, along with the county supervisor and the county CEO. I’d been spouting off about these raids, but that was nothing compared to the top brass witnessing the fierce intrusion with their own eyes.
After this, Mark Ridley-Thomas was compelled to visit the chief of police, who point-blank admitted that the police were being asked to carry out these compliance checks but were never given proper training. Mr. Ridley-Thomas then visited the county mental health director and described the harrowing events. The director said that was a recipe for re-traumatization, and likely to cause setbacks.
Word of Supervisor Ridley-Thomas’s inquiries must have gotten around, because the next time the police showed up to the house, they knocked on the door, no guns drawn, no handcuffs at the ready. Still, there were six officers, looking to do a compliance check on one woman who’d been at the house for six months. I watched helplessly as they rifled through her belongings and patted her down.
We weren’t the only nonprofit dealing with these issues, but when I talked with other providers, they turned up their hands: what could they do, it was part of the contract now. I didn’t feel that way. I could no longer keep standing for it. Something my mother once said kept echoing in my head, All money ain’t good money. If experience had taught me anything, I needed to honor what she, long ago, hadn’t.
But to terminate the Healthright 360 contract meant the loss of a guaranteed $200,000 a year for A New Way of Life. In addition to covering the cost of living, those resources helped fund our staff attorneys. If I temporarily forwent my salary, I calculated we’d have four months of reserves. It was, I prayed, enough time for us to figure out something else.
The director of Healthright 360 was a longtime associate and friend. But he was caught in the demands of the Probation Department. I told him I could no longer allow A New Way of Life to be caught up in what had become the “re-entry-industrial complex,” and I didn’t want to be profiting off people’s misery and suffering. I cared more about my mission than the funding. I cared more about people than money.
I remembered the long-ago advice of Dorsey Nunn, who’d made the decision that his organization would not take government money. When I told him I’d terminated my contract, he said, “Susan, that’s some bold-ass shit.”
Throughout the years Dorsey and I had confided in each other about the struggle to serve our mission, and how funding requirements can sometimes be counterproductive to helping people. “There’s a marked difference between recovery and the politics and business of recovery,” he told me.
“I know,” I replied. “But I don’t just sign the back of the check, I sign the front of the check, too.” I had an organization to run, women and children to house, salaries to pay. I needed another chicken to fall from the sky.
A month after I terminated the contract, I was invited to the Battery, a private social club in San Francisco, whose members were interviewing charities. Before potential donors, I presented A New Way of Life and asked for $225,000 in funding. When they called to tell me I’d been selected, they presented me with $278,000 to support the re-entry homes, no strings attached.
I continued on the faith walk. And funding continued to come in, from the California Endowment, from Californians for Safety and Justice, from the Ford Foundation, from the Women’s Foundation of California, from the California Wellness Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence, Serving California, the California Community Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Drug Policy Alliance, and many individuals across the nation. No compliance checks, no guns, no handcuffs.