Guest Opinion | Rick Cole: Gascón Deserves A Chance to Make Us Safer

Is safety important to you? Of course it is!

All my life, Californians have agonized about crime.

Understandably so. Security for ourselves, our loved ones and our neighbors is fundamental to our peace of mind. Murder, rape, assaults and robberies exact traumas that can haunt the lives of victims and their family and friends for a lifetime. Even low-level “nuisance” crimes erode our sense of personal and community wellbeing. Respect for the law is paramount for a civilized society.

But if our safety is so vital, why has there been so little serious thinking about how to actually make us safer? Our world is constantly changing with new technologies, economic disruption and demographic shifts – yet California continues to revert to an ancient reflex of retribution over prevention.

If putting more people in jail solved crime, California would be the safest place on earth. From 1977 to 2006, California multiplied its prison population by a factor of eight. At its peak in 2006, California’s per capita prison rate was by far the highest in the world. It still is more than twice the world average and three quarters of the prisoners are Latino and Black.

Fearlessly, some veteran law enforcement professionals have sought better ways to protect us. One of them is George Gascón, our District Attorney. His career resume is one of a kind: a childhood refugee from Communist Cuba, he joined the United States Army military police; rose through the ranks of LAPD to Assistant Chief; served as Police Chief of Mesa, Arizona, a city of half a million population; and then as Chief of Police in San Francisco. He was elected District Attorney in San Francisco, then defeated the incumbent to become Los Angeles County District Attorney four years ago.

Yet, despite his extraordinary record of first-hand experience with the gritty reality of law and justice, his intransigent critics have promoted a phony narrative from his very first day in office. They have relentlessly sought to paint him as an out-of-touch radical who has put us all at risk.

District Attorney Gascón has faced an onslaught of resistance and obstruction from those wedded to the status quo. They have sued him, slandered him, vilified him and poured endless cash into recall efforts. Voters in Los Angeles have endured four years of fear-mongering exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies by the prison-industrial complex and its obstinate “tough on crime” advocates.

Through it all, Gascón has persevered to seek to administer justice with the goal of actually making us safer, rather than pandering to fears and prejudices. Lost in the smear campaign is his record. His office has filed 100,00 serious felony cases – at the same rate as his predecessor and he’s cracked down on organized retail thefts. What’s different is his focus as well on the roots of crime, including reducing recidivism, the revolving door of crime, prison, crime, prison.

We all know the ancient formula of “an eye for an eye.” But when it comes to safety, we seem to forget the wisdom in the proverb, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Prevention is not only more effective, it’s also much cheaper. LA County jails cost taxpayers nearly a $1.5 billion a year and California spends more than $18 billion a year on prisons. This doesn’t include the cost of local jails and Federal prisons. We complain about the cost of higher education – but it costs twice as much to house an inmate in State prison as it would to send them to USC.

George Gascón is no miracle worker. Like Kamala Harris, who preceded him as District Attorney in San Francisco, he’s had to work within a broken justice system. His efforts at reform have been distorted by sensationalized media coverage. He’s had to respond to a polarized electorate prey to “alternate facts.”

Your safety and mine is too important to relegate to stale slogans like “tough on crime.” Four years is too short a time to assess better answers to crime and safety, especially since Gascón has had to overcome stubborn resistance to his “smart on crime” initiatives. After decades of ineffective and inhumane reliance on prisons as a panacea, I’m voting to re-elect George Gascón for a safer future for us all.

Rick Cole is District 2 Councilmember-Elect, taking office in December. In his previous roles as the City Manager in three California cities, he’s been responsible for hiring four Chiefs of Police. He also earlier served as a Pasadena Councilmember and Mayor and teaches urban policy at Pepperdine University and Occidental College.