S1: Hey , everyone. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today , one of the hosts of NPR's Morning Edition shares his public media journey and how he finds time to sleep. Then we take a look into a legal strategy many immigration lawyers are taking to help immigrants in detention. Plus , how proposition 36 costs are straining San Diego County's budget. KPBS roundtable starts now.
S2: For public radio listeners , the NPR voices we wake up to often become part of our morning rituals. They join us for our bleary eyed breakfasts and our hurried school drop offs , our rainy day commutes. And today we have the pleasure of hearing from one of those voices a martinez. Since 2021 , he's been a co-host of NPR's Morning Edition and the Up First podcast. He joins me now live , where he's been a part of a KPBS event today here in La Jolla. A welcome to the KPBS roundtable. Thank you for having me.
S3: The table is not round , by the way. We are not at all angular. Yes , that's full disclosure.
S2: We got that. Wrong.
S3: Wrong.
S2: Um , you know , it's so much to talk about , you know , with you in your journey in public media because your story is , is quite unique and quite distinct. So , you know , kind of.
S3: I was a sports radio host for a long time. Did Dodger talk and also Laker line , uh , working with ESPN. Um , and that's all I that's all I cared about. I , you know , I was very , very involved in sports and being in the sports bubble. I didn't think that I had room in my life for anything else. And then I got hired at KPCC in 2012. They were looking for a host for one of their afternoon shows , and , uh , they happened to run into me because they , they had trouble finding a Latino radio host. That was part of the grant that was given to KPC at the time. So they settled on me. And that is how I came into this public radio world , a world that I had no knowledge of. And I always like to say that I know that there was an MPR , but I couldn't tell you what the N , the P and the R stood for. But it completely opened up all kinds of things. You know , just being exposed to public radio , even though I was technically an employee of the business , I kind of started to realize that , hey , there's a lot of stuff out there in the world beyond sports that I'm interested in , that I enjoy and that I'm fascinated by , and that is one of the biggest blessings of public radio , is that it kind of opened me up and made me a whole person more than I ever thought I could be.
S2: So , you know , going back even before that , before your sports journalism took over , um , you grew up your lifelong Angeleno. You grew up in Koreatown.
S3: That was really idyllic. I mean , it was it was like the idea of what , you know , America is when you consider that so many different people live next to each other and with each other. Um , and yeah , it was it was one of these things where I didn't realize at the time how I was being exposed to so many different people. And it seems funny to say that now because we're so divided. I think America is so like , you live over there , you stay over there and you think over there and I'll stay over here. But yeah , Koreatown was was in the 80s and into the 90s , too. It was just a great place to live. If you wanted to kind of be exposed to all kinds of different people and viewpoints.
S2: Your first passion was sports. You kind of been talking about that. Tell us , you know , what was it about sports and telling stories around sports that drew you in ? Initially , because.
S3: I wanted to play. I wanted to play professionally , but you know how many people have that dream and it never works out. But I thought , my gosh , you know what ? If I could find a way to still be involved with sports ? Because I think for me and sports was always more than just the game itself. It was it was what families share. You know , families , you know , that get together and watch a game that were the same jersey. They sharing that moment together. And sports goes beyond just the game itself. It's it's a business story. It's a political story. It's a culture story. There's so much , I think in sports that extends into what we do in public radio that it was something that I , that I thought if I could just keep telling these stories and talk about the game and talk about the people in the game , you know , it was a way to stay in sports without actually doing what I really wanted , which is to play. But it's as close as you can get without without actually getting dirty and getting grass stains on your on your uniform. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Well , what do you think you learned most from those years in sports journalism ? You covered Los Angeles Dodgers , the Lakers , I mean some really big passionate fan bases , some some really important sports teams there.
S3: It was , you know , Magic Johnson was part of that group. And Frank McCourt was not really liked by a lot of Angelenos. So it was seen like , as this , this like this magical transformation that would finally bring the Dodgers back to the glory that Dodger fans expected it. So I went on the air that night on ESPN and did a whole oral history of the Dodgers from the time they left Brooklyn to come to Los Angeles , and what it meant to the city , how the city finally felt connected to the rest of the country , and that they would have a brand in the Dodgers that would kind of put their stamp that there just more than just a Hollywood town and then went through the history of the , you know , the 70s and 80s when Fernando Valenzuela became a Dodger and how that brought in Mexican-American fans and Mexican fans to Dodger Stadium. And you heard Spanish in the stands. You hadn't heard Spanish in Dodger Stadium before that , and then a little later on with Hideo Nomo became a big superstar. You heard Japanese being spoken in the stands and then Korean when Chan Ho Park in the 90s became a big star for the Dodgers. And then all of a sudden , that Dodger Stadium became like my neighborhood in Koreatown , just one of the biggest multicultural spaces in all of Los Angeles. And it y because you know what ? It was sports. It was baseball. It was the game that brought everyone together and made them realize , hey , we share something in common. We can get together and just exist in the same space and not worry about our differences too much.
S2: Well , I mean , that's really powerful. I do think that's probably enough of talking about the Dodgers.
S3: Where are we ? Oh , yeah , we're in San Diego. Sorry about that.
S2: I want to kind of go forward now to your role in mid-morning edition. I want to , you know , wondering if you can kind of peel back the curtain a little bit and tell us , you know , how a show comes together and how you approach your work.
S3: Um , so one of the things that we've been doing on Morning Edition that I think is a big difference from what we were doing in the past , is that when , when we would bring on a politician or someone we're trying to hold accountable for something. We would try to maybe pack in the news of why we brought them on to the lead , and then into the questions , too. So what we do now is that to to to free us up with that guest , to be able to get to the meat of things quickly. We have a reporter on ahead of time to talk about whatever was happening that brought that guest on that reporter , and that interaction with that reporter takes care of the news. And then when right when I'm right , when I get to talk to the to the to the person that we're there to talk to , I can just jump right in right away and not have to restate everything or have to set it up for the listener. So I think that frees us up to be able to get more out of that interview and also give the listener a nice package that they can kind of listen to or download or listen to , you know , in any way that they listen to , whether it's on the radio or maybe later on on NPR or through Up First through the podcast. So I think that that has helped in , in , in just kind of streamlining what the listener hears a little bit better than before.
S2: And you cover just such a range of stories on Morning Edition. I mean , it's just really incredible. I'm looking through kind of a list of some of your recent ones. One of them stood out to me. Um , it was an interview with the director of of a docuseries on Netflix about the late Mexican singer Juan Gabriel. Um , and , you know , you walk through kind of setting up his importance , you know , the story of the series , but you end by asking the director , you know , what her favorite Juan Gabriel song is , but you do it in a really interesting way , and I just want to play a little bit of that question.
S3: When I was a.
S4: Little kid , my grandfather was a very serious , quiet and strict stern man , but there was one time where I saw him play this song , and he closed his eyes and was mouthing the lyrics to that song. I'd never seen that kind of emotion out of him , and it really made me think , man , that song has that much power over him. So for you , what is your number one Juan Gabriel song.
S2: I just illustrate that just because you really revealed something really personal there , and I know that's something that not all hosts are trained to do or meant to do.
S3: You don't know parts about their lives other than what they're presenting to you. So I think if you're a little bit more open and honest about some of the things in your life , um , people get to know you a little bit. And , you know , when I do that , it still gets some criticism. People don't like it. Sometimes they want their NPR hosts to be just like , hey , give me the story and the news and that and keep yourself out of it. But I think now we're in competition with with everyone. I mean , we're in a dogfight for our survival , for our existence , and we need to compete with podcast who's whose hosts are very open and very. Yeah. And they just put everything out there. So we need to do that a little bit so that people can trust us. The only way they're going to get to trust us is if they get to know us. And by doing little stories like that , I'm not saying the whole interviews about me because the subject is something else , but if I can do a little bit that gets somebody to say , oh yeah , you know what ? You know , there's there's a different a human side to this reporter , to this host. I think that goes a long way toward establishing that trust. And maybe they keep listening to us.
S2: And you mentioned the trust in news. You know , there are we've seen issues of that. Just the trust declining in news coverage.
S3: We have to compete. We have to feel like like all of our competitors are are after our listeners and after our attention economy. Right. We're trying to get people's attention. So , you know , we try to find stories that would appeal not just to public radio listeners , but to everyone. And if we can do that , that brings in new people to public radio , and it allows our listeners to hear something that they've never heard before. So I think it serves everyone. And that's what we're here to do , is to serve the public as public radio journalists.
S2: I think it's really hard not to mention that 2025 has just been such a unique year in in public media. Obviously , the loss of federal funding is just , you know , hard to ignore. I'm curious , just in light of that , how you're thinking about public media , because this is something I think a lot of people I'm hearing from listeners , you know , myself included , were sort of like , I don't know , reconsidering our relationship with public media in the wake of this change.
S3: Yeah , it worries me. It worries me that because , like , think about I think about like how I was transformed and changed by being exposed to public media. If there's some radio station , some public media , radio station out there that all of a sudden has to go away because of the funding that they can't get access to anymore , and then that person that was just like me , that doesn't get exposed to that. I mean , you're talking about a life that's not transformed. That's not different. That's not better. That's not whole because public radio isn't there. So I'm hoping that people step up and keep stepping up and keep supporting public media because there's too many. There's too many. Jorge Martinez is out there that don't become a and don't become public radio engaged unless unless they're out there supporting a.
S2: Martinez is co-host of NPR's Morning Edition and the NPR podcast. Up first , a , thanks so much for joining us today.
S3: No problem.
S1: After the break , how immigration attorneys are relying on an old legal strategy to fight for their clients stuck in detention. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. As President Trump's mass deportation campaign continues. Immigration centers across the country are getting more and more crowded. Many immigration lawyers are employing new legal strategies to protect their clients , and one way they're doing that is through habeas corpus petitions. KPBS investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis found those petitions are being filed at historic rates , and he joins me now to talk more about it. Gustavo , welcome back to roundtable. Hello. So tell us more about these habeas corpus petitions.
S5: I've spent over a month reporting on it , but essentially the way I see these habeas petitions , they are a window into this national fight that's going on right now in courtrooms all across the country over the president's ability to detain and deport. This is a fight over mass deportations , and it's playing out quietly across the country in different federal district courts what they are. Habeas corpus is a federal lawsuit. It essentially challenges the government's ability to detain people unconstitutionally. And they're usually. They're used mostly well. Different ways throughout our history. Right ? I mean , they predate the US. Uh , the Founding fathers put it in the Constitution as a way to push back against British rule. Right. British soldiers would use these general warrants to go into people's homes without probable cause. British troops would detain settlers and not give them bond hearings. So the Founding Fathers didn't want this new government to be able to do that. And they put habeas corpus protections into the Constitution. Now , fast forward 250 years later , they're now being used in the context of immigration law and immigration detention in a way that they really haven't been used before and we'll probably get into this later , but there's , um. They're being used in immigration. Well , actually , they're not even really being used in the immigration court system. They're being used in the federal court system. Right.
S1: Right. And I want to delve more into that. But , you know , real quick , you mentioned kind of the way that the Trump administration is reshaping , you know , immigration. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how , you know , the habeas corpus kind of fits into that piece , which , as you mentioned , it's not even in immigration court. It's in another sort of law.
S5: Yes , in the federal court system. Yeah. So , so to understand what's going on , you need to kind of take a step back and understand the fundamentals of immigration court system and the federal court system. There are two different court systems. Immigration court is part of the executive branch of government. It's under the Department of Justice , which is under the attorney General , Pam Bondi. The Attorney general has the power to fire and hire immigration judges. There's this administrative part of the system called the Board of Immigration Appeals. The Attorney General can use the Board of Immigration Appeals to change the way immigration judges interpret law. They can really rewrite the rules of the entire system. One decision from September really restricted an immigration judge's ability to even hear bond cases or bond hearings , rather right , in a way that that doesn't happen in federal court. Federal court is under the judicial branch. Judges are appointed. Lifetime. They have independence. They're not fired if they make a ruling that the administration disagrees with. Those cases can be appealed to the appellate court and then over to the Supreme Court. So two totally different systems of justice , but with the immigration court system , what my stories go into is how the Trump administration has leaned on the attorney general and the Board of Immigration Appeals to rewrite the rules. People who used to be detained and be released on bond. They're not getting that option anymore. Parole. Same thing. If you can't get bond and you can't get parole. And for the audience , it's important to understand that these would be clear cut cases in years before. Right. Think somebody who's been in the country for 20 years has a business , has a house , is married to a U.S. citizen , has U.S. citizen children and immigration judge would determine , hey , we have limited space in immigration detention. He's not a flight risk. He's not a public safety risk. Let's release him. He'll still fight a deportation case , you know , but he will get strapped with an ankle monitor. He'll have to check in with ice regularly , but he's not a high priority. So let's not spend the money on this private detention center. Let's let him stay home and fight it from there. That isn't happening anymore. People like that , people with clear and established ties to the community , are being held for months and months and months without getting even a hearing for bond , let alone getting the bond. One of the people I talked to. Their client was a rare case where they got a bond hearing and a judge gave them bond. Their family members paid the bond. They still were not allowed to leave. Right. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in the criminal justice system , but it does happen in the immigration justice system. So what's going on now with all these avenues blocked ? Immigration lawyers are telling me that they don't have any other options , right ? They have to leave the immigration court system , use this old habeas corpus petition system and go to the federal courts and get a federal judge to say , hey , no , no , no. The Trump administration eyes , they're holding you in a way that doesn't really reflect what the Constitution offers. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And you spoke to a retired immigration judge kind of about the gravity of this moment. All you know what. You've.
S2: You've.
S1: Been kind of.
S2: Breaking down. What did she have to tell you about this kind of , you know , increase in habeas corpus petitions that you report on here. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. So , retired Judge Dana marks. She had been a judge for for decades and was one of the first female judges. She not just one of the first female judges , but she was one of the first immigration lawyers who became a judge before her. It used to be the Ice prosecutors would become judges , and she really encouraged more women to become judges and more immigration lawyers , almost like defense lawyers to become judges. And she really dedicated the tail end of her career to rebuilding , trying to make this system a little bit more fair. You'll hear from her in a second. I mean , she has just seen almost her life's work be destroyed in the within the first year of this administration. Here's what she had to say.
S6: It breaks my heart as a lawyer who who believes in the rule of law , that the law is being trampled and ignored and distorted and abused.
S5: And just to add a little bit , like I said before , part of her mission she would encourage women to become immigration judges. She doesn't do that anymore. She doesn't encourage anyone to join this profession right now , and she is afraid of the reputational damage this is doing to immigration judges. Who wants to become an immigration judge. If you might be fired for having the wrong decision. You know.
S2: Well , I mean , so talk more about the data and what it show about habeas corpus petitions and how they're being used , because as you as you like , report on here , it's pretty much exploded in the last couple of months. Right. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. Yes. So I found this almost kind of by accident as part of just my normal , you know , reporting routine. I do look up at federal court cases periodically and see who's suing the government , who's suing , uh , CoreCivic , the company that owns the private detention centers. And I noticed a lot of lawsuits specifically naming Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem , the DHS secretary and the attorney general. And on Pacer , the website that lets you access the federal lawsuits , I kept on getting a roadblock , a notice. Normally you can look at these cases , you can look at them , you can pay for them. You can download them with these specific immigration habeas cases. I just got a little notice I said this case is not available to look online. So I wrote down every single case number. These were like. At that point there were only like 30 of them. But I wrote down 30 case numbers and had to physically go to the federal courthouse downtown , fourth floor , look at the clerk's office computers and and find a document by document there. So there is a little bit of heavy lifting to get them on a one off case. And at first I just thought this was happening in San Diego. So I reached out lawyers from those petitions talking to them. One of them was based in Los Angeles , and she told me , oh no , this is happening in LA , too , and told me about how many she had filed in LA. And then she told me about this website. I had never heard of habeas dockets , where they're actually tracking every , um , every district , every US district court in the country to see how many habeas petitions they're getting. And that's when I kind of found out this really her Herculean effort to try to make these cases more , more public and more accessible.
S2: And , and you kind of unveil this sort of network going on here. You kind of leads you to a man named John Cronin.
S5: And Habeas doc is he is he's not a lawyer. He's never really been a radical or an immigration advocate. He has a background in software development. He lives around Chicago , and he didn't like what Ice was doing in Chicago when they were doing the raids and things like that. He was also very much captivated by the Kilmer Alberico Garcia case , followed it closely , followed the coverage closely , and wanted to dig a little deeper and find the court documents of that case. And they were. That case was based out of Texas at the time , and he found out that if he wanted to look at the documents , he would have had to drive from Chicago to Texas , go to the Texas courthouse , get paid $0.10 a page for the documents , and they'd see him that way. And he thought , this is insane. This is 2025. Why do I have to do this ? So what he's been able to do , and it's a small miracle he's been able to recruit a small army of volunteers all over the country who go to the courthouses and get these documents from him. They'll get printed copies , scan them , send it over , and he will put them on habeas dockets. And in doing so , he is showing the public the surge in cases all over the country , from a couple of cases in February and December to 60 and 70 upwards of 100 in some , uh , in some district courts. And you can just see this playing out all over the country. This massive rise in immigration lawyers almost using this as a last ditch effort. Right. Like we said before , the immigration court system doesn't let people out right now. And their only shot at doing this is through these habeas petitions.
S2: And kind of , as you mentioned a little bit before. I mean , these are immigration lawyers. They don't normally , you know , file dockets in federal court all the time. So a lot of them need training and things , right ? I mean , tell us more about this sort of community and how they're sharing information about how to file these petitions. Because as I understand it , from your reporting , these are not easy to file.
S5: One lawyer told me she spent 25 hours working on a single petition. And there are a totally different part of law. Like we talked about the retired judge , Dana marks. Right. She practiced immigration law for ten years before she became a judge. In those ten years , she never filed a single habeas petition. Um , Stacy Tolson is a is a Pasadena based lawyer. She does , um , more than most. And she said in a normal year she would file two , two petitions a year. She's been filing three a week since September. So I just tells you that the growth and , um , it is a totally different practice of law. So you're asking immigration judges to not only go from the immigration court system to the federal court system , but within the federal court system , file these very technical and complicated legal petitions. Um , so to do that , they've been able to create these formal and informal networks of mentorship and support. Uh , lawyers will call each other up and say , hey , I need help. You know , federal litigators will partner up with immigration lawyers and ask for Assistance. They'll use conferences , you know , like professional conferences. I know the American Immigration Lawyers Association has done formal trainings , but even just informal ones are calling your buddy from law school who you haven't really talked to in a couple of years and say , hey , I need some help. These are difficult times. Could you help me out a little bit ? And every lawyer I talked to said they have relied on each other not just for technical support , but also just the emotional support. Like , hey , I had a tough day in court today. I just want to talk about it or sharing the joy of winning an actual case like , hey , thank you so much. Without you , this couldn't have been possible. So I think the the brain trust is really helpful , but also just the human emotional support is really helpful for these lawyers as well.
S2: You mentioned one lawyer that spent , you know , 25 hours on on her first petition. Her name is Cassandra Lopez , and she was able to use a habeas petition to to get one of her clients out who'd been detained for several months. Tell us about her and what. What she had to tell you about her experience. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. She spoke. We spoke at length , um , just about why you're having to file these ones. The pressure that comes with representing somebody who's detained. Right. One of her clients had a heart condition. Had already suffered one heart attack in an immigration detention center in Arizona before they were transferred to one here locally. They weren't getting their medications on time. They weren't able to be on a , you know , like low salt , low fat diet while they were in detention. Normal things you would be able to do at home. Yeah , right. But that was stripped away from from him and he had no way of getting out. So the pressure that Cassandra Lopez was under was immense. Just not just for the general , like getting her client out , but his safety , immediate safety. And she talked about how , yeah , she won a case and it was a big win. But it's one of thousands , right ? There are thousands and thousands of people out there. These habeas petitions are about more than 4000 now across the country. They only represent people that a have access to a lawyer , and b their lawyers are capable of doing this. So some lawyers told me this is the tip of the iceberg , right ? For every case , how many are just nameless detainees that don't have access to a lawyer but are still suffering in detention right now ? So it was kind of bittersweet. She explained how well we can hear from her , but she kind of talked about the the success of one win. But you're going up against a massive system.
S7: It doesn't mean that like the whole system is going to change , but it definitely feels satisfying to be pushing back against the Trump administration's unjust and dehumanizing immigration policies and winning and feeling vindicated by the court ruling in our favor that this detention is is unlawful.
S2: And just a reminder , this is just for the indefinite detention , like getting out of detention. This is not the end of the road for the immigration case itself.
S5: Oh , no. No , of course not. This this gentleman.
S2: Bond sort of.
S5: Sort of. Yeah , yeah. Essentially , he still has a deportation case looming over him. He still has to fight that deportation case , but at least now he can do it from the comfort of his own home , with the emotional support of his family , having easier access to his attorney and being able to care for his own health and mental well-being. Right.
S2: So , you know , Cassandra there identified one case that that habeas corpus petition , you know , was victorious. You know , she was successful in that.
S5: And not just Cassandra , but every lawyer I talked to was able to tell me , yes , we were able to get somebody out through habeas. So everybody has won at least one case. But there is no centralized national database that tells you the success rate , the overall grantor denial rate right now. I think some folks are trying to work on that right now , but we just don't have that information. We do have just anecdotal one off wins. And we can read what the federal judge wrote in the decision. And most of it that I've seen has been , yeah , the federal government cannot do this to immigrants and detain them in this capacity. And I think , you know , with the absence of the knowledge , we I can't tell you if that represents 20% of the cases or 80% of the cases , but I know it makes a difference for those individuals. And the lawyers do take it as , like Cassandra said , vindication , that you're making the right argument , vindication that the law is on your side , that even though the immigration court system has failed you , the federal court system is doing its job and acting as what it's supposed to do , which is a check and balance on the executive branch.
S2: Well , and as you said , the habeas corpus , this legal precedent has been around since the founding of America. As well. Right. So. Well , we appreciate you breaking this all down. Gustavo Solis is KPBS investigative border reporter. You can check out his full series at KPBS. Gustavo , thanks so much.
S5: Thank you. Appreciate it. Andrew.
S2: Up next , California voters passed stricter rules for certain crimes back in 2024. Now , the county of San Diego is struggling to pay for the cost of those reforms. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. California voters passed proposition 36 in 2024. That measure increased penalties for certain theft and drug crimes. San Diego County is now spending tens of millions of dollars as a result of it. The new costs , though not unexpected or coming as the county's budget is facing some serious challenges. Lisa Halberstadt is a senior investigative reporter with Voice of San Diego , and Lisa joins us now to talk more about it. Lisa , welcome back to roundtable.
S8: Glad to be here.
S2: So remind us what exactly proposition 36 does.
S9: So proposition 36 cracks down on repeat drug and theft offenses. Essentially it made certain crimes felonies. If someone has at least two related prior convictions. And it also created these things called treatment mandated felonies , which are supposed to be a situation where a person who's accused of a drug crime can access treatment , and then their case gets closed out if they successfully complete that treatment.
S2: And Lisa , in the campaign around proposition 36 back in 2024 , there were concerns raised about how much this would cost.
S9: And what county officials are telling me is those projections are bearing out.
S2: So , you know , being these costs were expected , where are these financial challenges coming from for the county ? I mean , there are some impending federal cuts we've been hearing about , right ? Yes.
S8:
S9: So the county is facing a lot of budget uncertainty right now. They're looking at just from the federal cuts , um , potential up to $300 million hit on the annual county budget. Um , so proposition 36 is coming at a tough time for the county budget wise. Um , right now , departments are just absorbing these costs. Um , and there are some trade offs and tough decisions being made. But really , where the hit is coming Is proposition 36 is putting more demand on the criminal justice and behavioral health systems at the county. So , for example , the sheriff's department is seeing more people in jails. Public defenders have more cases that they're needing to handle. The probation department is working with more defendants who get released or who need oversight. Um , the Behavioral Health Services Department is having to do treatment assessments and try to find open slots for people. Um , and the fact of the matter is that this initiative itself did not include funding to support these costs.
S2: So , as you mentioned there , the numbers of people in county jails has increased. And this is something you you know , you delved into the numbers. What did you find since prop 36 took effect , which was in December ? Right.
S8: So the number of.
S9: People in jails has been taking up , as of Thursday , 540 people in county jails were there on proposition 36 related charges. That's 13% of the jail population. And we know also that there have just been a great deal of bookings , too. Um , since December , there have been more than 3400 bookings in county jails tied to prop 36.
S2: And how long , on average , are these prop 36 offenders spending in jail ? Because that was one piece of this is they didn't want , you know , people spending time in jail. They wanted to kind of increase these access to behavioral health programs. Right.
S9: So what the sheriff's office tells me is that 40% of proposition 36 defendants are being released within the first five days of arrest , but there are longer days for people who have missed court hearings or may have other charges , or whose cases have other sorts of of complications. Um , so what that means is actually the average amount of time that a prop 36 defendant is spending in jail is just under a month.
S2: You mentioned one of the key components here of prop 36 was to , you know , address underlying behavioral health challenges , whether related to addiction , mental health , other things. You know , how has that effort been going since , you know , the implementation has started.
S9: So it took the county a few months to get a referral system set up for prop 36 offenders who were expressing interest in treatment. Um , and , you know , one of the the ways that that works , I think is important to say the person has to go through the process and actually make a guilty plea in most cases to to get to this point in the process. Um , and then at that point , um , the behavioral health clinicians at the county who've been assigned to do this work will determine the treatment that they need. Now , the question is , are people getting treatment ? The Union-Tribune had a really good story recently looking at how this has been going. And what they found is that the vast majority of folks are navigating the system to try to find treatment on their own. Um , so people that are referred to outpatient treatment are being given phone numbers and , you know , a few suggestions on places that they might call , but then they're having to make those calls on their own , which is really challenging for a population of people who are disproportionately likely to be housing insecure and have long term struggles with addiction. So this is something that , um , reporters like me are watching really closely. I think it's also really worth noting. You also have this situation where you have more people coming into jails , um , who have addiction and mental health and health challenges when there's already been a wave of , of concern for quite a long time about deaths in our jails.
S2: So earlier you mentioned , you know , how some of these added costs are being absorbed across different agencies in the county , and I want to delve more into that. You mentioned some of them , but the San Diego County sheriff , they've already started changing some spending priorities as a result of this , right ? Yes.
S9: So the sheriff's office reported that they have had about $32 million in costs tied to this influx of people coming into their jails. Um , and so , you know , that's everything from , uh , you know , just the increased numbers leading to more people needing meals , other supplies , um , various , you know , people needing transports to hospitals , which are increasing their cost over time , has been up dramatically. So this has led them to make decisions to reallocate some funds , for example , $16 million that was supposed to go toward a new helicopter. Um , they've also been putting off or pulling funds , um , for jail infrastructure upgrades that they emphasize are really even more needed with this increased wear and tear on jails. That is coming with the increased jail population in terms of other impacts. Um , you know , the public defender's office told me that they have seen more than 1000 proposition 36 cases , and they're expecting to exceed 2000 by the end of the year , which , by their own estimates , would end up costing more than $12 million for various staffing , supplies and services that come with that additional caseload. Um , so they're feeling like that , you know , workload is not sustainable. And then the probation department , they're also seeing a dramatic uptick in their workload for things like pretrial assessments. Um , supervision , different reports that they have to do. Uh , and so they're estimating a $2.6 million budget impact. Um , but as I said , for now , the county departments are just eating these costs and then having to make tough trade offs in their budgets.
S2: So there seems to be a lot of , you know , ongoing uncertainty about the ultimate costs that prop 36 will ultimately , you know , will have here in San Diego , in the county. Um , you know , one more optimistic take that you're hearing about is that , you know , some of the increased spending and needs could end up going down in the long run. Can you walk me through that argument ? Yes.
S9: So there is some discussion , particularly among supporters , that perhaps you might see an initial uptick of people in jails and more pressure on the justice system and the behavioral health system in the initial years of prop 36. But then over time , perhaps more people would be connected to treatment. Uh , more people would be rehabilitated and so they wouldn't be re-offending. I would say it's still to be determined if that will work out. Um , it does. If it does , certainly that would mean improvements to public health and safety and , uh , potentially fewer people in jails and prisons if more people truly get treatment. I think it's important to say here , though , that opponents of prop 36 are very skeptical about this. They believe that prop 36 is just driving more people into jails , and that it isn't showing yet , that it can deliver promise treatment , and that it's disproportionately impacting communities of color who are bearing the brunt of this.
S2: And going back to the county's budget challenges here. You mentioned how all these different agencies are kind of absorbing the costs for now.
S9: So since prop 36 passed , there has been quite a push from state legislators and local officials to get the state to deploy more funding. And so there was a budget deal this summer. That means that $100 million will be deployed across the state to help with prop 36 implementation , but once that spread across 58 counties , um , that's a pretty low amount of money per county. So last week , county supervisors voted unanimously to lobby the state for more money , absent more money from the state. It's really on local governments like San Diego County to figure out how to make this work.
S2: Earlier we touched on , you know , federal funding. We've heard so much about federal cuts , you know , and how it's impacting local government , state governments.
S9: But there's a lot we really don't fully understand about that yet , because some of the , uh , there are some decisions that could be made at the state level that could lessen the blow on the county. So for now , what's happening is the county is really trying to look at. Where could it tighten its belt ? Where could it find other places to get revenue ? Uh , to support some of these programs next week ? Uh , County Supervisor Tara Lawson Reamer is proposing a partnership with the San Diego Foundation to try to help pay for some county contracts , to try to make sure that those are safe during these uncertain times. And there's also a push by Democrats on the board , led by Tara Lawson Reamer , to possibly pull from the county's reserve account , which she emphasizes would not be a holistic solution. It would potentially be a bridge. And there are multiple discussions right now to about possible tax or fee increases to try to deal with this uncertainty.
S2: Well , a lot more to follow up on. We'll have to have you back on Lisa to talk more about this. Lisa Halberstadt covers the county of San Diego for Voice of San Diego. Lisa , thanks for joining us on roundtable this week.
S9: So good to be here.
S2: That'll do it for KPBS roundtable this week. Thanks so much for listening. You can listen to the show anytime as a podcast. KPBS roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays again , Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show , you can always email us at roundtable at KPBS or leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtables. Technical producers this week were Ben Redlich and Adrian Villalobos. The show was produced by Ashley Rush. Brooke Ruth is roundtable senior producer. I'm your host , Andrew Bracken. Thanks again for listening. Have a great weekend.
