Many of these children have suffered consequences far beyond the nature of their original transgression. Those who didn’t go to prison often had fines levied against them; and in some cases those fines have dogged them into adulthood. Those who wound up incarcerated, even for a short time, faced steep odds for a turnaround upon their release. San Bernardino County is home to one of the nation’s largest formerly incarcerated populations, including people on probation and parole, as well as those who are out “free and clear.” That freedom is all too often short-lived: An unfortunately high percentage wind up back behind bars.

I work with COPE, Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, where our mission is to revitalize the communities in which we live, work, and worship. Right now, we are focused on the clear correlation between recidivism and education, or rather, lack of education. Nationwide, upwards of 70 percent of people who wind up back in prison never graduated from high school. Young children who are made to feel like criminals at school are in double jeopardy of not getting educated and becoming inmates.

The path to keeping our kids out of prison is clear. We must start where the bottleneck begins—in school. Here in San Bernardino, the data shows that school discipline policies are failing our children, essentially priming some of them for a life in and out of prison. It’s time for an alternative path.

Of course campus safety is crucial. I understand the complexities and challenges that many of our students and families face, and the limitations our schools and educators have to work with. Discipline is going to be a part of any school environment. But in taking punishment to such an extreme, have our schools stripped our children of their childhoods—that precious time when mistakes are a part of their development? Are we robbing them of the very thing that will help them make good decisions later on?

Instead, we need to emphasize redemption and foster resilience. I know first-hand the power of such an approach from an experience in my own life, early in elementary school. Though it was decades ago, the memory is still strong. I was in first grade, and my friends and I decided to ditch school and hang out in a neighborhood park. We were caught and sent to the principal’s office. I was heartbroken that we had misbehaved and concerned that we would never again be considered “good kids.” I braced myself for the dreaded paddle, possibly combined with a few days of suspension.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, the principal expressed care and concern, patiently explaining why our actions were unsafe. My shame at violating the rules was now mixed with surprise at not being punished. The principal knew that we could recover and be restored to good standing. Any sense of defiance that might have been brewing inside of me vanished, replaced with gratitude at being seen and understood.

Perhaps this example sounds trite, too innocent to be taken seriously. It’s hard to believe that playing hooky might be treated as the first step in the career of a child-criminal. Unfortunately we’ve reached a point in our schools where such a lapse in judgment—or more likely a lack of developed judgment—is met with harsh punishment, a “nip-in-the-bud” approach. Now, opting for the playground over the classroom can mean a costly truancy citation, and fighting or stashing a small pocket knife can get a child arrested. It’s time to take a step back, to nurture that bud so it can bloom.

San Bernardino Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center.

Redemption wasn’t a word I knew at that age, but if I’d looked it up in the dictionary I would have discovered that that’s what the principal did—he made something that was bad or unpleasant better or more acceptable.

For far too many students—primarily children of color—discipline is seldom redemptive. And in San Bernardino it’s quite literally expensive. One COPE parent leader has a son who was cited and fined for a middle school fight. The leader tells me she was unaware of her son’s fine, which started at around $500. It went unpaid and continued to grow. Years later, before he graduated from San Bernardino City Unified, and went to get his driver’s license, his application was rejected. The reason? The unpaid fine. Unresolved citations can also derail students’ plans to enlist in the military and disqualify them from certain types of internships and jobs.

San Bernardino’s current struggle to recover from bankruptcy is all the more reason to shift the emphasis from punishment back to education—it costs the county $144,000 to incarcerate a child for a year, nearly thirteen times what it spends per child on education.

In June of 2016, the San Bernardino school board agreed to reduce the number and range of offenses that trigger a citation. The new policy, which is being implemented
immediately, will mean that when students violate curfew, loiter or get caught up in a non-injury fight they will be referred to an administrator for positive behavior support, restorative justice or other corrective action. And there’s a greater effort to ensure parents know what’s going on.

This is an important first step, but it is just a first step. San Bernardino city and school district leaders need to address the needs both of those in school now, as well as those who’ve been harmed by the previous system. We need to start helping them get the education that they missed, find jobs, and get these fines and “crimes” erased from their records. Right now that burden falls almost entirely on their families, which can take a heavy toll. As the daughter of a longtime substance abuser who was in and out of prison, I understand the costs. I’ve often drawn strength and comfort from friends and family members in similar situations.

But over the longterm families struggle to provide emotional and financial support. We pay dearly to help ensure our loved ones don’t wind up back to prison. And many families are facing a multi-generational struggle—a child of an incarcerated parent is three times more likely to be incarcerated themselves.

At COPE, our members often step in to provide food, housing, emotional support, and even help with basics like getting an ID card. The resources out there are minimal, and that needs to change.

The progress we’ve made with the school district is encouraging. We know we have the power to engage them. That’s the beauty of the evolution of our organization: Our growing credibility and visibility. Now we are looking to the next step—helping our kids and our community with sustainable change.

The post Playing Hooky From School Isn’t a Crime appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The untapped potential in South L.A., where I live and work, is huge. There are an estimated 690,000 people in Los Angeles County alone that are eligible for expungement or felony reduction. By getting rid of their convictions, people will have more opportunities to get jobs, start businesses, earn housing benefits, go back to school, or even win back custody of their children.

There are two big challenges. The first is that not enough people know about the possibilities under Prop. 47. The second is that the process of changing your record is not as easy as it could be. But it’s still well worth doing. I know because I’ve recently been through the process of reducing a felony myself.

Indeed, Prop. 47 helped change my life even before it was passed. After I got out of jail in 2009, I began volunteering at the Community Coalition, an innovative nonprofit in South L.A. Eventually, my responsibilities grew, and I became a member of the staff, working on civic engagement and neighborhood improvement.

Through that, I got deeply involved in the campaign for Prop. 47 back in 2014. We held town hall meetings and weekly rallies and made over 40,000 calls to residents throughout City Council District 8. We also knocked on thousands of doors, educating our communities about Prop. 47 and building a larger movement regarding criminal justice reform.

To me, a major point of Prop. 47 was to redirect criminal justice funding away from our racist and broken prison system and invest those dollars into community-based prevention, re-entry, and treatment programs. Non-violent offenders are also coming home early from prison or jail through the Prop. 47 resentencing process.

In its details—which need to be better understood—Prop. 47 allows people who have certain non-violent felony offenses on their record to get those reclassified to a misdemeanor, no matter how old the charge. These include simple drug possession, petty theft under $950, shoplifting under $950, forgery under $950, receipt of stolen property under $950, and writing a bad check under $950. The money saved from having fewer people in the prison system is supposed to go towards programs for crime victims, to help people re-enter into society, and to reduce recidivism and deter people from getting into trouble in the first place.

During the campaign, I was upset by a troubling narrative being pushed by our opponents—that Prop. 47 was going to let out a bunch of violent rapists and murderers. So, in advocating for Prop. 47, I used myself as an example: I had reducible low-level felonies under Prop. 47, and I had been out of jail for five years, was married, was a father, and was doing work that benefited my community.

The slightly longer version of my story is that I grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of South L.A., and went to Crenshaw High School. But I grew up around a gang element, a criminal element, and gravitated toward street activity. I was in and out of jail between the ages of 18 and 27 and ended up with a couple of felonies.

The last time I was incarcerated was seven years ago. When I got out, I looked for a job, and my felony drug conviction was held against me, even by companies that are supposed to be “felon-friendly.” So I worked dead-end jobs for a few years. I drove a truck without receiving benefits. I was a cook and a dishwasher. I worked for a contractor.

I was very fortunate to find Community Coalition—CoCo as it’s called—which gave me opportunities to do amazing work and to grow professionally despite my criminal record. I discovered that I had a talent for organizing people, and in 2012 worked on the Proposition 30 campaign to raise income and sales taxes temporarily statewide.

Before Prop. 47, I had tried to get my simple drug possession and commercial burglary charges expunged, but it was very hard—and I was ineligible to do anything about my record while I remained on probation. When I got the job at CoCo, it seemed less urgent. But after Prop. 47 passed in 2014, I wanted to use the new process myself, both for my own benefit and so I could help others who might be navigating the process.

It can be cumbersome and confusing. You start by getting a copy of your “rap sheet” or criminal record, and that means going to the different counties and the various superior courts where you might have had cases. For me, that would have meant going to Riverside, San Luis Obispo County, and various L.A. County courts.

But another option is to request a copy of your record from the state Department of Justice—which is how I decided to do it. That requires getting fingerprinted. The Live Scan usually costs money—$25 is the state fee, and there can be other charges that bring the total above $50. There are fee waivers, but that requires you to submit more forms and proof that your income is under a certain level. CoCo and other organizations, thankfully, have implemented huge resource fairs that allow people to get their record for free. I got my rap sheet in three weeks.

Once you have your record, you fill out forms. The process can vary depending on your county, but for me, it required three different forms—a petition to reduce the felony, a petition to expunge the charge, and then a petition for a fee waiver.

You put those together into a “reclassification packet” one conviction at a time—a package for each charge.

You can mail in the documents, but I was advised to head to the courthouse as a way of avoiding mistakes. Any errors in your application can send you back to the beginning of the process.

The process at the court took an entire day. You get directed to the clerk, who directs you to the public defender and the D.A. for different signatures and to submit your forms. It was hard to navigate, but being there allowed me to ask questions. I also found that at L.A. Superior Court, at least, many of the people who worked for the courts didn’t seem to understand the process themselves, and I got some instructions that proved to be wrong.

Once you’ve submitted your packet—as I did last summer—you wait, for weeks or even months, while the D.A.’s office confirms your eligibility and then notifies the Superior Court, which then must document the reclassification of your record. Usually, you just get the notice in the mail, but you can get called to court for a hearing.

There are many programs and legal professionals working pro bono to help people navigate the process. Several community organizations in South L.A. and around California are running clinics or Prop. 47 fairs to help people out. I went to CoCo’s own Prop. 47 clinic at Southwest College and found the advice I got there useful in my own case. I also found the instructions on the MyProp47 website very helpful.

In my case, my felony was reduced to a misdemeanor by mail. If I wanted the charge totally expunged, I’d have to go to court, which I haven’t yet done. When I have time, I also think I am going to use the process again to reduce or expunge another charge.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to build on Prop. 47. The initiative should be expanded to include any type of nonviolent crime. And we need to take this opportunity to build a much stronger re-entry system to serve people coming out of jails and prisons, especially in Los Angeles County. This need is related to the homelessness we’re seeing; people who are getting out of prison and jail are saying they don’t have many options of where to live.

I’m hopeful that the new federal Promise Zone designation for South L.A., which is supposed to bring new resources to the area, will help. And the state needs to do more too. I’m already involved with Gov. Jerry Brown’s Public Safety Rehabilitation Act, a ballot initiative that gives judges more discretion in sentencing people and releasing them early.

We have such a moment of opportunity to transform people’s lives and our communities; our elected officials can’t afford to be cheap. Recently, Gov. Brown’s January budget allocated a mere $29 million in Prop. 47 savings (later revised up to $57 million) for prevention and anti-recidivism programs, as well as victim services, but that was $100 million less than what the nonpartisan legislative analyst office had identified as savings. This is a longer-term fight that I believe the people can win.

For those of us with records, taking advantage of Prop. 47 means we need to understand what’s available and what rights we do have as citizens. Too many people think, mistakenly, that if they have a felony or a misdemeanor, they can’t vote in California, and that keeps us powerless as a constituency. The sooner we can correct misimpressions, and help people throw off the burden of a criminal record, the better South L.A. will be.

The post Prop. 47 Has the Power to Transform South L.A., If More People Used It appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.