The ACLU of California supports the striking prisoners’ demands to end cruel and inhumane conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison. These conditions include prolonged, solitary confinement in small, windowless concrete boxes with little to no human interaction and other severe physical deprivations.

Not only are such conditions inhumane and harmful, but they also jeopardize public safety. Solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental illness, and prisoners who are subjected to such extreme isolation cannot properly reintegrate into society, resulting in higher recidivism rates.

An alarming number of prisoners are released directly from secure housing units into the community. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) must implement policies that enhance safety both within prisons and within our communities. Current practices do not achieve these equally important goals.

The ACLU calls on the State to re-double its efforts to engage in meaningful negotiations with the strikers to bring the hunger strike to a swift and peaceful conclusion. In addition, the ACLU calls on Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary, Matthew Cate, to significantly curtail the use of the SHU at Pelican Bay and other California prisons and to provide all prisoners confined to the SHU items, services, and programs necessary for psychological and physical well-being including warm clothing, out-of-cell time, and participation in rehabilitative programs.

When San Francisco’s sitting police chief was chosen to become San Francisco’s district attorney, there were two clear schools of thought on such an unprecedented move.

Leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union and others wrote to underscore the conflict of interest inherent in elevating a sitting police chief to district attorney in the same city. They predicted that new District Attorney George Gascón would be terribly challenged by the conflict of interest posed by his tenure as police chief.

Other San Francisco leaders took a different view. They argued that Gascón had shown signs of being a reformer as police chief and that this was the same spirit necessary in the district attorney’s office. Conflict of interest issues, these thinkers argued, could be identified and isolated.

But the events of the past few months have highlighted just how significant the conflict of interest challenges faced by former chief Gascón are going to be. And his responses have not been encouraging.

San Francisco police officers have been accused of allegedly conducting illegal searches and committing perjury – incidents that occurred while they were under Gascón’s command as chief. Most of these cases occurred at Southern Station – the one station located in the Hall of Justice, the same building where Gascón worked as chief (and where he works today as district attorney). As chief, Gascón was responsible for the training and supervision of the involved officers.

When confronted with these facts, the former chief insisted he was perfectly capable of handling the investigation in his new office. He maintained he could fairly investigate the San Francisco Police Department for conduct that occurred when he led the agency.

Gascón maintained this position for nearly a week. Finally, after lawyers for the accused officers met with the police officer’s union, Gascón announced he was turning over the investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office – but insisted that it was due to unspecified “resource” issues, not because of a conflict.

His decision to turn over these cases to a third party, regardless of the motive, is a correct step. Yet something absolutely foundational is still missing – Gascón has not made it a policy to recuse himself from investigations relating to his own tenure as chief.

Gascón’s decision to continue – as a matter of policy – to investigate incidents involving police officers when they were under his command is fundamentally flawed on at least two basic levels. First, every suspect is entitled to a fair, objective investigation. When Gascón sits in judgment of his own service as police chief, this foundational principle of the law is undermined.

The second flaw underscores a management principle rather than a legal principle, but is vitally important if you are an advocate of reform in San Francisco or elsewhere.

When Gascón makes the decision to investigate the officers who served under his command, he is saying clearly that he himself holds no responsibility for their behavior. Such a position of inoculating the leader from the behavior of his agency undermines the basic tenets of reform – and frankly, the basic principles of sound management.

In the not too distant past, San Francisco saw the bulk of the police department command staff criminally indicted for allegedly covering up an incident involving off-duty officers on the street. Those charges were dismissed, but the underlying culture of top command looking the other way rather than embracing oversight and responsibility was identified as a problem that needed to be fixed.

The new chief after that incident was Heather Fong, who embraced a culture of responsibility starting at the top.

If former chief Gascón is now saying that he was not responsible for the actions of his own officers – he is saying he does not understand the foundational principles of how to lead a reform movement.

For the sake of justice – and for the sake of reform – former chief Gascón needs to implement a clear conflict of interest policy that would recuse him and the office he now leads from investigating the San Francisco Police Department.

David Onek is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, former Commissioner on the San Francisco Police Commission and candidate for San Francisco District Attorney.

By Allen Hopper, ACLU of Northern California

California voters came out in droves to support Proposition 19 this November. More than 4.1 million people voted for Prop. 19, which would have allowed adults 21 and older to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana for personal use and allow cities and counties to tax and regulate commercial sales. That’s more votes than Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina garnered. Though the measure didn’t pass, the degree of support marks an undeniable leap forward in the movement to end marijuana prohibition. In the end, Prop. 19 achieved a higher percentage of “yes” votes (46%) than any state-level legalization measure on the ballot over the past decade.  

This is clearly only the beginning of a new, more rational public discussion about marijuana. It’s no longer a question of whether marijuana prohibition should end, but rather when and how. Post-election polling data shows that many voters who rejected Prop. 19 nonetheless believe that marijuana should be made legal. Even the leaders of the opposition to Prop. 19 publicly stated that they are not opposed to marijuana legalization, “if it’s done the right way.”  

There is already talk about another initiative on the California ballot in 2012, and California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has pledged to introduce a new statewide tax and regulate bill. And California is not alone in its efforts. Several other states are likely to have legalization or decriminalization on the ballot in the near future, including Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada. What we know is that it is clear that states do indeed have the right to decide for themselves whether or not to keep state marijuana prohibition laws on the books.  

The war on drugs has failed, and people are ready for a change. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. One in every 31 adults is on probation, in jail or in prison. FBI figures show that over 800,000 people in the U.S. are arrested for marijuana offenses each year. The vast majority of these arrests are for low-level, nonviolent simple possession offenses. Drug law enforcement in the United States is a driving force behind some of the worst aspects of our flawed criminal justice system, including tragic racial disparities. People of color are arrested at far higher rates than whites for marijuana offenses, even though rates of drug use are equal across racial lines.  According to the Prison Policy Initiative, we incarcerate black men in the United States today at rates more than five times higher than in South Africa during apartheid.  

The public is taking notice that ending marijuana prohibition will ease our overwhelmed state and local budgets, and will free up law enforcement resources to address serious and violent crime.

Despite the disappointing outcome, Prop. 19 was a giant step in the right direction. Let’s keep the discussion going.    



Allen Hopper is the Police Practices Director at the ACLU of Northern California.