Proposition 36 would prevent funding for effective crime prevention programs – Daily News

In the early 2000s, I was running with a tough crowd in South Los Angeles. My friends and I dropped out of school, and many of us were using drugs and alcohol. Soon, many of them were serving long sentences in prison. Others died.

An angry security guard at my high school once told me that I would never amount to anything and that I was destined to either end up in jail or on the streets. His words were a challenge. “Look at me,” I told him. I enrolled in night school, caught up on my classes, graduated on time, and then earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.

I may not have escaped the streets had it not been for the inadvertent challenge presented by that security guard, and throughout my career I have felt a moral need to help people who fell into the trap I was avoiding – who ended up with untreated addictions, mental illnesses and long prison sentences and returned from these verdicts to a community often reluctant to be given a second chance.

Over 10 years ago, I got a job at Shields For Families in Los Angeles. Her mission is to work in low-income neighborhoods, often with people returning after serving time. I was a case manager, helping returnees get the services they needed: helping them obtain Social Security cards and birth certificates, connecting them with mental health and addictions providers and Medi-Cal, enrolling them in job training programs, sometimes helping them access apartments . If someone didn’t have money for food and clothing, we helped them. If they needed financial assistance to complete a work-related course, e.g. training for a professional driving license, we were at their disposal.

During my 12 years at Shields for Families, I was promoted to program manager. During most of that time, the organization realized significant savings achieved through the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014. This proposal marked a turning point in the way California administered criminal justice. By redefining two common property and drug crimes as misdemeanors rather than felonies, tens of thousands of people have been diverted from prison, and the resulting savings have spawned networks of groups that provide essential services to people leaving prison and those at risk. As a result, California has dealt with crime smarter, more effectively and more economically.

I know exactly why this kind of work is so important and why it’s so important that we continue to fund it. Overreliance on incarceration not only threatens public safety, but leaves generational scars on families and entire communities. I grew up separated from my own father who was in prison, and I spent most of my life dealing with the trauma that caused this. Now my son is also separated from his own father who is in prison. It doesn’t have to be this way. Both my father and my partner needed not a prison cell, but support in overcoming addictions, which are the main reason for their imprisonment.

It’s because of Prop 47 funding that Shields For Families is on a solid enough financial footing to go the extra mile to help customers. I remember one man whose family gave him an old car after prison; but the car had no plates or registration, and he knew that if he drove it, he risked being pulled over and going back to prison for violating his parole. Our organization gave him cash so he could register his car and commute to work every day.

Our organization’s women’s re-entry program called POWR (Providing Opportunities for Women to Re-Entry) currently operates three homes in Los Angeles and Long Beach where women returning from prison can live with their children, thus providing them with sufficient stability, to facilitate family reunification.

In summary, Shields For Families serves thousands of people in low-income communities throughout Southern California, including hundreds of people who rely on re-entry services each year. Our model is a success story that has positively impacted the lives of thousands of returning prisoners, their families and the wider communities in which they live.