George Gascón: My Job Never Makes Anybody Happy

At LNP, we believe that if any politician agrees to speak to the community, we should take advantage, e.g., Liz Cheney’s Last Stand earlier in the year. We jumped at the opportunity to hear the incumbent candidate for Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, organized by community leader Brandon Lamar, at the PCC campus.

Gascón reiterated his employment history for the crowd, recalling his journey as Assistant Chief of the LAPD working East and South LA, Chief of Police of Mesa, Arizona, Chief of Police of San Francisco and then, as Gascón relates, his quite unexpected election as District Attorney of San Francisco.

He was subsequently elected as Los Angeles County DA in 2020 on a platform of not seeking the death penalty, limiting the imposition of cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, and stopping the practice of imposing excessive sentences.

“I concluded that so much of the work that we were doing was actually creating more insecurity than security. I started to work internationally and nationally with the Council of State Government Justice Center at the Kennedy School of Public Policy at Harvard University. I became convinced that we have to do much better for public safety, ” he says.

“I actually came to a conclusion the system is not broken,” he continued. “The system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It just needs to be changed. The people who get incarcerated are African Americans, Latinos, and then, in general, poor people. It’s not because those communities have more criminality per capita than other communities. It is just simply because of who they are, not what they did.”

When people get arrested, their criminal record limits their capacity to obtain employment, to get an education, to get housing, to get all those things that make the community a community.

“We found this to be true, especially in gang enforcement,” said Gascón. “We had LAPD officers placing brown kids in our gang files, saying that the kids were admitted gang members when, in fact, they weren’t. When you apply gang enhancements to a penalty, it multiplies the time they’re going to be in prison.”

Finally, a mother complained and said her son was not a gang member.

“The LAPD investigated (because we now wear body cameras), and the police department was able to go back and track cases. They were able to show that the officers were lying. The consequences for a young person to be placed in a gang file are substantial and life-altering. I am committed to making sure that we support good policing and that we also hold people accountable when they violate that trust when they violate the law while they are in uniform,” says Gascón.

“When the data in the system is corrupt, the consequence is horrendous for people. Additionally, how do we deal with people who have mental health or substance abuse problems, who are cycling in and out of jail for years at a time? Usually, it is because they are poor and unhoused. We also see prosecutors sometimes violating the law, not providing discovery, doing things that we are constitutionally required in order to ensure that the system is fair,” he said.  

Gascón believes previous Los Angeles County administrations have created one of the most carceral systems within the state and a place where the death penalty was applied at higher rates than even in some sovereign states.

“As a country,” he says, “we engage in levels of incarceration that are unknown to any other major democracy or industrialized nation in the world.”

I’ve stopped seeking the death penalty because it doesn’t make us any safer and does not deter crime.

“We have nearly 250 people on death row. We’ve put together groups of experts with a variety of people, including former law enforcement, former prosecutors, defenders, and academics. We created these working groups to create a blueprint for policies that would be implemented. I’ve stopped seeking the death penalty because it doesn’t make us any safer and does not deter crime. We have the evidence to prove that the application of the death penalty in this country, and certainly in California, has been racist; and lastly, it’s irreversible.”  

Regarding overturning verdicts of those wrongfully convicted, Gascón questioned the DA’s department upon his arrival in 2020.

“They responded by saying our job is to protect the integrity of the conviction. My question was, how do we define the integrity of the conviction? Shouldn’t that be based on the truth? As a result, we’ve already released 13 people and have more to do.”

“We can’t cure mental health in a concrete box.”

He also addressed his policy of not prosecuting youths as adults.

“The reason for that is supported by science that says that our brains are not fully developed until we’re about 25. I joke that, for us guys, it is usually around 50. The reality is that treating kids as adults is extremely harmful to our collective safety. Putting a 16-17-year-old in adult prison generally does not resolve anything. We have not concentrated on rehabilitation, so when you mix a 16-year-old with hardened 30, 40, or 50-year-olds, all you’re going to do is increase their criminality. The law has changed significantly. It’s very hard to transfer a kid to an adult system today; in fact, it’s almost impossible, but it wasn’t like that for years. Our work should be about redemption and rehabilitation. Thankfully, our Board of Supervisors has been very, very supportive about creating more programs, housing and keeping subjects in a secure facility for a while because we can’t cure mental health in a concrete box.”

“The work that the district attorney does, whether you’re the hardcore lock them up, or you’re somebody who’s trying to move into the 21st century with informed practices, makes us realize we really have very little influence on the micro level of crime. Why? Crime is influenced by many factors, including economic and environmental factors, so much that is beyond our prosecutor’s capacity.

“Our role is to ensure that dangerous people are dealt with and, when appropriate, they’re separated from us until such a time as they can be released again. We also have a role in setting up the tone within our community about what is expected from the police. Police don’t work for the prosecutor. They’re independent, but the DA sets the tone for certain behavior. That interaction between the prosecutor and the police is critical for the well-being of our community.”

Gascón reiterated his platform about not imposing excessive sentences.

“I came into an office that had blanket policies about using the maximum possible sentence every time. As a result, we have a complete dislocation of an entire community, and we’re still paying the price for that. The impact on the mental health of our country is immeasurable. We have made tremendous changes to our policies on prosecution. People are being held accountable. They’re still going to prison for long periods, 10, 15, 20 years, but they may not be going for 100 years. They’re going to prison for long periods.”

Are there any exceptions to these policies?

“What we’re not doing is prosecuting people who are driving with a suspended driver’s license or without a license. Often, people are dealing with a suspended license because they cannot afford to pay the fines and fees. They are Black and brown people, poor people. When you impound their cars and take their only means of transportation to go to work, they lose their job, can’t pay the rent, and get evicted. We’re also looking at people who have small quantities of drugs, are addicted or have mental health problems. We’re trying to divert those people because putting them in jail for a few days doesn’t solve anything and clogs the system. It takes away the capacity to be able to deal with and prosecute serious crimes.”  

Gascón also took questions from the audience regarding domestic violence and his victims’ rights protocols.

“I’ve added 30 positions for Victim Services. We went from having a lawyer running a Victim Services Unit to hiring a professional who is trained in trauma-informed care to run the department. We have advisory groups for issues for African Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ+, interfaith, AAPI and an antisemitism group. Hate crimes have become a major problem in our community. While we have communities to help with groups who are impacted by hate crimes, people often forget that it is the Black community that is impacted the most by hate crimes. Black communities are always the most impacted by hate. That’s often not discussed,”

“We need to treat kids like kids.”

Other questions focused on specific cases, including questions from Courtney Bridges, mother of Kylie Thomas, who was murdered on December 1, 2020, and community policing and the prosecution of police (140 cases prosecuted since he took office). Pasadena NAACP representative Jocelyn Griffin asked Gascón what he was doing to address the issue of the adultification of Black girls. When compared to their white counterparts, Black girls are treated more adult-like and are presumed to have more knowledge about sex, drugs and other adult topics. Gascón offered to have his office create an MOU with her committee.

“We have a tremendous amount of implicit bias in our work that goes across every racial group, and it permeates our work, education, public health and certainly the criminal legal system.”

He was also questioned about domestic violence, removing certification from police officers for misconduct so they can never work as a police officers again, community diversion program partnerships, the frustratingly long time it takes for the prosecution of an officer-involved shooting, and the time it takes to investigate it.

Special Counsel to the DA, Shelan Joseph, answered questions about the Racial Justice Act enacted to address any convictions that were based on racial comments made by police officers, judges, prosecutors or defense attorneys.

When asked about his belief in police oversight boards, Gascón replied, “I believe that it’s important to support our police departments when they’re doing good work. But there is a difference between being pro-police and demanding respect and equal and lawful treatment.”

“My job never makes anybody happy.”