The Cost of Living

photograph by YuDesign

David Zahniser's piece in today's Times laid out some of the latest about anti-gang program reform in Los Angeles - mainly, that the L.A. Bridges program will be dropped in favor of (hopefully more accountable) prevention and intervention programs in 12 specific gang-reduction zones. While reading it, I tripped over the following piece of information:

"Each of the 12 zones -- neighborhoods such as Panorama City, Cypress Park and Baldwin Village -- will receive $1 million per year in prevention funds, enough to target at least 200 children per zone."

It was sobering to think about how, even after whatever lessons have or haven't been learned by the inefficiency of L.A. Bridges, this is the best we can realistically hope for in terms of raw numbers. $1 million to target 200 children per gang-reduction zone (to this, Councilwoman Janice Hahn reliably quips: "'I mean, all of Markham Middle School' -- which has an enrollment of 1,500 -- 'is at risk of joining gangs'"). And what would an acceptable success rate be in terms of gang prevention? 70%? 10%?

I believe strongly in the value of human lives, and 20 or 50 "saved" children per zone is no small thing, but with tens of thousands of gang members in L.A. (estimates vary between 30,000-60,000), we're talking about band-aids. In addition, there is the problem of measuring success: How long would one keep tracking the children involved in such programs? How effective can long-term tracking be, when many of these children are illegal immigrants? Do we declare success if they stay out of gangs for 10 years, and join in the 11th? How surely could we determine whether they were active gang members or not? How to know whether a child would have stayed out of gangs anyway?

I'm in support of both prevention and intervention programs, as I think too much emphasis is placed on law enforcement when it comes to this problem. And I certainly am not smart enough to draw up a short-term plan that sounds better than this new strategy. But I don't think much will change unless this city somehow tackles larger issues of economic and educational inequality (in addition to all those thornier issues of gun control, immigration, prison reform, interracial tensions, etc.) If ever gang membership and gang violence significantly decrease in L.A., I can't see it being by design.

Back to Special Order 40

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At the urging of libertarian political opportunist Walter Moore, the city of Los Angeles is going back to the well of Special Order 40.

Much has elapsed since the death of an L.A. high school student named Jamiel Shaw, and as I predicted weeks ago, the conversation about his death has become an ugly one about immigration.

Moore has ridden the zeitgeist and pressed a repeal of an LAPD regulation called Special Order 40, which bars police from investigation someone solely to determine his or her citizenship. 40 is intended to encourage illegal immigrants' cooperation in police investigations. (Reasoning: An illegal immigrant will tell police about a crime he has witnessed if he knows he won't get deported for it, proponents say.)

His proposed repeal, called "Jamiel's Law," has no political traction, but a related motion in the city council by a San Fernando Valley council member by the name of Dennis Zine does. Zine wants to amend 40 by requiring officers to check the immigration status of gang members they run into, even if those gang members aren't under arrest.

(The plan has obvious surface flaws. For instance, how do you know who's a gang member and who's just a troublemaker? Sure, there are government lists of gang members, but gang membership changes everyday, and the LAPD's Excel spreadsheets of gang membership cannot possibly keep up. Still, one can understand the appeal of Zine's proposal.)

Whether Zine, Moore, or 40's proponents are right I cannot say. The debate over 40 is typical of a policy debate, in which there are pros and cons, and the "right" policy is the one where the pros outweigh the cons.

I can't say whether the pros outweigh the cons because the debate lacks the statistics that comprise pros and cons here. To determine whether 40 is good policy, you'd have to know things like how many illegal immigrants feel protected by the existence of 40? How many crimes have been solved with an illegal immigrant's help? Et cetera.

Right now, the debate is solely an ideological one: should the LAPD be in the deportation business or not? As we know from watching (for instance) the Bush administration, ideology is not necessarily a springboard to good policy.

As such (and as usual), city council president Eric Garcetti is on the right side here:

We need to look at the big picture and focus on creating a system that effectively deports criminals, encourages cooperation from victims and witnesses, and ensures the federal government accepts its responsibility as the enforcer of our nation's immigration laws.

Sure, he sounds non-committal, but starting from a premise of "these are worthwhile policy goals" is so much more effective than starting from a premise of "I believe illegal immigrants should be ______."

Money speaks, but does it speak well?

Like most people I know, I've never really thought much about punitive damages (at least, I assume that's the case - you never know what people like to ponder in their free time), but an article in the NY Times last week (Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages) got me thinking: What is the point of awarding large sums of money - beyond the actual damages suffered - to plaintiffs in civil lawsuits?

While Americans are used to hearing about large punitive damage awards (despite the active movement to limit punitive damages in the United States, they are a fairly settled point in our legal system), they're relatively uncommon in other countries. English law severely restricts the circumstances in which they can be awarded, while Japanese law prohibits the enforcement of any punitive damages awarded by foreign courts.

In the case outline in the Times article, Judy Glebosky, an Alabama woman had sued an Italian manufacturer after the buckle on one of their motorcycle helmets failed in an accident, killing her son. The Alabama court awarded the woman $1 million in punitive damages, but the company refused to pay. Last year, the Italian Supreme Court sided with the company, blocking Glebosky's efforts to collect because they found the notion of punitive damages to be offensive to Italian ideas of justice.

Now, I've always been vaguely in favor of courts awarding punitive damages, especially when there's clear evidence of sleaziness, if not direct proof of wrongdoing, on the part of big corporations. Exxon Mobil, tobacco companies, I'm looking at you. Corporations may legally qualify as individuals, but it's damn hard to throw those 'individuals' in jail, even if you do manage to get a conviction, which is enough of a challenge in itself. How do you punish a corporation for breaking the law?

Sometimes it's enough to simply make them compensate the plaintiff(s) for the actual provable harm caused by corporate malfeasance. But if the point of the punishment is also to deter future crime, you have to decide whether having to shell out for compensatory damages really is enough to stop a company from committing the same irresponsible and/or illegal action in the future. Maybe they'll get caught again, but the cost of settling the cases that do come up is usually outweighed by the savings that made the irresponsible and/or illegal action seem like a good idea in the beginning - it's incredibly unlikely that they'll have to pay out in every case. In the end, money speaks, and because punitive damages involve larger sums, they speak louder than compensatory damages.

At this point, punitive damages - governed by state laws - are pretty standard practice in this country. It is an understatement to say that there has been a fairly vocal movement to limit punitive damages - opponents have been screaming for limits, or outright prohibition, at the tops of their lungs. But despite all that, the large awards that you hear about are rare within the system - the median award is closer to $40,000, and punitive damages are only actually awarded in around 2% of the civil cases that do end up in trial. While efforts to cap punitive damages have failed to pass constitutional muster, most punitive awards larger than 4 times the compensatory damages are questioned for the same reason. We all remember last year, when the Supreme Court overturned $80 million in punitive damages against Phillip Morris awarded to the widow of a smoker in Oregon. I know I was pissed when that happened.

Which is why I was kind of surprised when I didn't feel that bad for Glebosky. Not that I suddenly discovered that punitive damages were a bad thing, but I did wonder why she needed the money - as she said, it's not going to bring her son back. I know I felt more certain about rulings against the tobacco companies because that money was going to go to anti-smoking education.

I don't have any clear conclusion to these musings, but I guess I just wish there were a better way of punishing corporate malfeasance than just throwing money at the problem. Maybe having to pay large sums does provide the proverbial slap in the face for corporations who would otherwise cut corners (or outright lie to consumers) in order to raise profits, but is it really enough? And with punitive damages going directly to plaintiffs, you get the impression that they're being excessively rewarded for their victimhood, which really only helps corporations in their fight against responsibility. On the other hand, who else do you give them to?