Barry Krisberg quoted in East Bay Express, April 11, 2012

In the 1990s, the legislature went so far as to officially change the penal code to say that the purpose of prison was punishment — period. “They took rehabilitation out of it entirely,” noted UC Berkeley law professor Barry Krisberg. “So for the past three decades the system has been guided entirely by retribution.”

Barry Krisberg quoted in Wired, April 11, 2012

“In 2004, it was reported that over one thousand youth had been sexually assaulted by staff in the Texas juvenile justice system,” says Krisberg. “It was the emergence of legislation and scandals simultaneously that had people realizing these systems were unfixable.”

Barry Krisberg quoted in The Huffington Post, Youth Radio, March 29, 2012

My concern is that we’ve worked hard, we’ve developed policy and procedure, we’ve improved education and medical care, we’ve cut down on the use of force and isolation but at the county level they’ve done nothing. So it’d be going back to where we were eight years ago, very harsh conditions, very harsh practices, and having to start all over again.

Barry Krisberg writes for The Sentencing Project, March 2012

The highest priority must be given to reducing the shocking disparities of how children of color are treated by the juvenile justice, child welfare, and education systems. The horrible treatment of youth is wrapped up with issues of poverty and race.

Barry Krisberg quoted in Oakland Local, March 7, 2012

One eye-opening moment for many in attendance came when Krisberg noted that while crime is a bread-and-butter political topic, frequently referenced by conservative candidates, in actuality, “crime rates in California are lower than when Eisenhower was president.”

-San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 2012 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/20/BA311N818B.DTL&ao=allo

“If California were to close the entire system, we would be, as far as I can tell, the first state in the nation to do so,” he said. “I think what the LAO is saying is, ‘Here are all the things you need to do if you want to make it work.’ I agree with all the things that need to be done … but I don’t see the infrastructure in place to pull this off.”

-KQED Forum, February 24, 2012 Host Dan Iverson
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201202240930

“I do not think that any of the counties currently have either the training or the programs to manage the youth that are currently in the Department of Juvenile Justice. I think the notion that the counties are already managing people like those in DJJ is just not true.”

The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2012 by Vauhini Vara and Bobby White
http://on.wsj.com/AovwcK

Alameda is “taking seriously the idea of reducing unnecessary incarceration and investing most of the money in treatment services” unlike those counties that are investing little in treatment services while increasing their jail capacity.

-KALW-FM, The Informant, February 2, 2012 by Joaquin Palomino
http://informant.kalwnews.org/2012/02/imprisoned-for-life-part-ii/

“If you’re the governor and you release somebody, or your parole board releases somebody, and then that person commits a crime, it’s going to be thrown in your face in the next election. In fact, the politics were irresistible to not parole anyone.”

-KALW-FM, The Informant, February 3, 2012 by Joaquin Palomino
http://informant.kalwnews.org/2012/02/imprisoned-for-life-part-iii/

“The states that have gone to a sentencing commission have achieved the goal of reducing prison or jail crowding: making sure that the violent people serve more time and get the non-violent people into probation or lesser sentences. That’s the rational way to do it, but I don’t see that happening any time soon in California.”

-iWatch, January 25, 2012 by Susan Ferriss
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/01/25/7961/fight-brewing-over-historic-california-plan-close-last-three-youth-prisons

Krisberg said that in the end, he’d prefer to see California keep a few hundred beds for juveniles at the state level and enact strong policies and provide adequate funding for monitoring and improving local treatment.

-San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 2012 by Barry Krisberg
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/31/EDFM1N0TJU.DTL

In California, the state is moving away from treating the DJJ youth as if they are irredeemable and is trying to increase counseling and treatment programs. Yet most of the youth still exercise in cages and their rooms are prison cells with open toilets in the middle. Many county facilities also are designed to have the look and feel of prisons.

-The Associated Press, January 18, 2012 by Don Thompson
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/18/calif-hopes-for-end-to-court-oversight-of-prisons/

“California’s prisons deteriorated to the point of an almost total federal court takeover,” said Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law who testified as an expert witness in cases involving prison crowding and treatment of juvenile offenders. “Now the spirit has changed … so we may be kind of digging our way out of this.”

-Beyond Chron, January 24, 2012 by Karin Drucker
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Collateral_Damage_Children_and_Prison_Reform_in_California_9833.html

Barry Krisberg, criminal justice expert and a Director of Research and Policy at UC Berkeley school of law suggests that these programs “will work well in some places [where] you have a critical mass of people that want to innovate: prison less, community more. But there’s just a dozen of them at the best.”

-KALW-FM, Crosscurrents, January 31, 2012 Host Joaquin Palomino
http://www.kalw.org/post/imprisoned-life-three-part-series

“The basic logic of determinate sentencing is, do the crime, do the time,” says Barry Krisberg, the research and policy director of the Earl Warren Institute at UC Berkeley. “There’s no role for rehabilitation under determinate sentencing.”

The Telegraph, January 12, 2012 by Amy Willis
http://tgr.ph/AyGDKA

“There is a pretty strange social movement that basically argues that the more guns carried by the more citizens the better,” Mr. Krisberg said. “I know of no civilized country that would put up with the kind of unregulated gun licensing that is currently in the U.S.”

-San Jose Mercury News, January 6, 2012 by Karen de Sá
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_19690874

“I am happy that we’re going to get rid of these terrible, old facilities,” said Barry Krisberg, a longtime state consultant now with UC Berkeley’s law school. “Having said that, though, there’s no objective information on how bad it is in counties, and how bad it’s going to be when counties take on these very challenging kids.”

-California Health Report, January 9, 2012 by Callie Shanafelt
http://www.healthycal.org/archives/6863

The youth in the system were the largest beneficiaries of realignment, Krisberg said. “It took them out of a terribly toxic environment and got them out of cages, got them out of prison cells. Got them back home into the community,” he said.

KQED News, December 30, 2011 by Mina Kim
http://www.kqed.org/a/kqednews/RN201112301804

“We’re seeing a continued concern on the part of the courts that they don’t want to poach into what is regarded as an executive branch decision.”

-Oakland Tribune, December 19, 2011 by Angela Woodall
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19575870

In contrast, counties haven’t begun to deal with the level of care needed by the offenders left in the state system, he said. “You would have to start all over.” And there is the risk they could be pushed into the adult prison system.

-San Francisco Chronicle, December 26, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-12-26/news/30558005_1_juvenile-offenders-adult-criminal-justice-david-steinhart

UC Berkeley Law criminologist Barry Krisberg, who has helped monitor reforms at the Department of Juvenile Justice mandated by court orders, warned that counties could face litigation over their facilities if they take the serious, violent juvenile offenders.

-The New York Times, The Bay Citizen, December 31, 2011 by Trey Bundy
http://nyti.ms/A0OOZ5

“It seems like a big mistake to walk away from a deal where the state was going to pay you and now you have to pay them,” said Barry Krisberg, a criminologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

-Al Jazeera TV, December 6, 2011 Host Rob Reynolds
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/americas/2011/12/2011126204515296421.html

“Every commission, every task force, every legislative group that hasstudied this matter has argued that the California correction system wasbroken and we needed to do rehabilitation; and that rehabilitation could be done much better in the local level than in remote state prisons.”

-The Crime Report, December 7, 2011 by Ted Gest
http://www.thecrimereport.org/archive/2011-12-juv-justice-trends

Krisberg, who noted that California has reduced its total of 10,000 juveniles in prison to under 1,000, said a principal challenge now is to persuade prosecutors not to increase the number of cases in which accused juveniles are tried as adults.

-San Francisco Chronicle, November 20, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/20/MNL91M01HD.DTL&type=printable

“But the larger question is, once you get to the jurisdictions that are dubious about realignment, that have not bought into rehabilitation as the main goal of the justice system, are we just going to see people gaming the system?”

-San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/25/BAI81M2O5V.DTL#ixzz1f1oEg6us

“While it is true that a small number of people commit the vast majority of crimes, we also know that they get tired and age out of crime and that keeping punishing older criminals has no effect,” said Barry Krisberg, a criminologist at UC Berkeley’s law school. “The problem with that argument is that they are saying people don’t age out, and all research says the opposite.”

KPCC-FM, Air Talk, November 8, 2011 Host Larry Mantle
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2011/11/08/21307/how-young-is-too-you

“There is an emerging consensus around the country that this is cruel and unusual punishment. Even where it’s authorized by statute, it almost is never done, which is the definition of ‘unusual.’ Second, the US is almost alone around the world in using punishment like this for children. So, there is an international emerging sense of decency that needs to be considered.”

The Sacramento Bee, October 21, 2011 by Andy Furillo
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/21/3992502/prison-realignment-reduces-time.html

“This law is just designed to say: Let’s be smarter. Let’s make sure that violent people are behind bars – that’s what we all want. And for the property offender, the drug offender types, let’s come up with a penalty that can be served at the local level and won’t cost as much.”

-KQED-FM, California Report, October 4, 2011 Reporter Scott Shafer
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201110040850/a

“The data kind of speaks for itself. Juvenile crime has been going down pretty dramatically. We haven’t seen any increase in youth ending up in the prison system, so the results look pretty positive.”

-Colorlines, October 5, 2011 by Jorge Rivas
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/10/study_locking_juvenile_offenders_behind_bars_is_costly_and_ineffective.html

“We need to reduce incarceration of young people to the very small dangerous few. And we’ve got to recognize that if we lock up a lot of kids, it’s going to increase crime.”

-KQED-FM, Forum, October 6, 2011 Host Dave Iverson
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201110060930

“There’s over 20 counties that currently have court-ordered caps on their jails…. By all indications, many of these jails have much lower risk people who, with some smart programming, can be moved out to make room for the state folks.”

-The New York Times, October 8, 2011 by Jennifer Medina
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/us/california-begins-moving-prisoners.html

“This is the largest change in the California state system in my lifetime,” said Barry Krisberg…. “Given that what we had was completely broken and was the most expensive, overcrowded and least effective in America, there’s some hope that this will change it.”

-HealthyCal, September 29, 2011 by Heather Tirado Gilligan
http://www.healthycal.org/archives/5939

“Political rhetoric – especially tough-on-crime rhetoric – is what got California into its corrections problem in the first place,” Krisberg said. “In our zeal to punish offenders, we’ve punished ourselves,” he said, citing the significant chunk of the state budget that goes to prisons.

-Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2011 by Alexa Vaughn
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/nation/la-na-prison-guards-20110930

But within public and private systems, some guards think their actions have no consequences because the process for punishing them is so convoluted, said Barry Krisberg. “Screenings are a good start, but what we need is far better training in terms of what the expectations of the jobs are, better supervision to identify potential problems and ways to deal with complaints about their behavior,” Krisberg said.

-National Public Radio, September 29, 2011 by Richard Gonzalez
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/29/140901846/californias-new-prison-policy-has-some-skeptics

The state’s plan is called “realignment.” It shifts certain functions from the state to the counties, says Barry Krisberg….  “With a state with 58 counties and the diversity of California,” he said, “what we’re going to see is 58 varieties of realignment.”