Public Safety

Creating Safer Communities

My Values and Commitment to Change

For more than 30 years, I have partnered with law enforcement, first responders, community activists and school districts with the goal of creating safe neighborhoods and secure schools for our children.  Public safety is more than enforcing laws. It is establishing mutually accountable partnerships between police and communities, students and teachers, constituents and elected officials where everyone has a stake, role and responsibility to reduce crime.  My approach focuses on encouraging neighbor-to-neighbor participation in cooperation with local government, parks and recreation departments, the schools, social service agencies and law enforcement to address public safety issues through prevention/intervention programs and suppression of threats to public safety.  

This approach has earned the endorsement of Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, civil rights advocates Connie Rice and John Mack and rank and file police officers, sheriff’s deputies, probation officers and firefighters.

Working for Change, My Record of Results

While serving as a member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1991-2002, I led the Council to direct the LA Police Department to establish a new policy on community based policing to ensure that the residents of my district and the greater Los Angeles community had access to officers in their neighborhoods to work with them on issues ranging from gang violence to graffiti. Because community participation is essential to public safety, I partnered with my constituents and community activists to close liquor stores and motels which contributed to crime in our community and institute broader neighborhood watch programs to reduce crime in corridors of the district where gang violence was high.  As a result of this leadership, crime dropped in my district. 

I authored the policy that created the Office of Independent Inspector General for the Los Angeles Police Department to ensure that the corruption which plagued the department from (1997-1999) during the Rampart Era would be prevented.  And I chaired the Committee on Gang Violence and Juvenile Justice leading to establishment of an $11 million citywide gang prevention/intervention program for middle school children in 27 schools which also included a parent mentor program.  I secured an additional $5 million to fund efforts to reduce violent crimes, create summer jobs and establish a violence prevention hotline for my district. As a part of my work on gang intervention, I worked with the Pat Brown Institute to establish a mediator training program for former African American and Latino gang members to enable them to mediate gang issues in their communities.

I have continued the fight for safer communities in the California Legislature where I authored legislation to add the commission of a gang-related hate crime to the California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (STEP Act); create a Youth Gang Violence Task Force within the Department of Justice to study the issues of youth gang-related homicides in California; regulate the storage of guns and ammunition in retail establishments; require the California Youth Authority to implement a pilot re-entry program for youthful offenders with a focus on case management, small scale residential correctional centers, gang intervention, education and treatment programs; and limit sex offender housing in “sober living” facilities.

I founded Days of Dialogue and under my leadership, I have facilitated city-wide and targeted meetings of law enforcement and community stakeholders on public safety issues ranging from Police and Community Relations to the shooting of Suzie Peña. I will continue this work on the Board of Supervisors.

My Plan

The Second Supervisorial District is the most ethnically and economically diverse district in the County with over 2 million residents, covering 174 square miles. It includes the municipalities of Carson, Compton, Culver City, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Los Angeles and Lynwood and unincorporated areas of Athens, Ladera, Lennox and Westmont.

Gang violence and homicides compounded by a struggling economy that destabilizes families, idles too many of our youth combined with easy accessibility to firearms, overcrowding in our County jails and increased ethnic tensions means that there is much work to do to create safer communities.

On County jails:

• Streamline the pretrial process to reduce pre-sentence detention periods so that our jails are less crowded.

• Increase diversion programs and insist on greater accountability for outcomes.
  

• Stop treating our jails as homeless shelters and properly identify and treat those persons with mental illness and substance abuse disorders, who represent large numbers of our jail population and contribute to recidivism rates.

• Reform the existing Three Strikes law that is in dire need of change to limit the scope of the Third Strike to violent felonies.
  

On gang Violence:

• Work with law enforcement, businesses, social service providers, former gang members and faith-based organizations to develop a coordinated, multi-jurisdictional strategy that includes health and mental health services delivery, job placement and workforce training, and educational intervention programs that directly address the social and economic reasons young people join gangs and coordinate services in a geographically targeted way.

• Develop a targeted wrap-around system of care for adjudicated youth to reduce recidivism rates.

• Assign a dedicated public safety/gang intervention deputy to work with cities and unincorporated areas within the District to develop community-specific plans for public safety in the Second District that focus on identifying and replicating best practices.

• Work with the County Sheriff and his department to stop undocumented gun sales between private parties and those in which people with “clean” records buy guns for people with criminal records. Both of these practices contribute to the accessibility of illegal fire arms and ultimately to more gun violence.

On inter-ethnic violence:

• Establish a Second District Public Safety Committee of the Empowerment Congress and work in partnership with the County’s Human Relations Commission to develop dialogues and partnerships in cities and unincorporated areas of the District so that communities are working together on common issues of concern.

• Work with the business owners, community leaders, advocates, educators and the Sheriff’s Department to develop educational programs and job alternatives for youth.

More Key Issues

Jobs and Economic Development

Seniors, the Disabled and Foster Care

Sustaining our Communities

Healthier Communities