Michael Jordan of recidivism
For the felons it was like listening to Michael Jordan give the halftime speech to a high school team.
That's how much difference there was between what they've done and what he did -- or at least why he spent a quarter-century behind bars.
Eight of them sat in chairs around a room in a building off M Street. It houses the Merced County Day Reporting Center. For a year, the joint venture between the Merced County Probation Department and BI Inc., a private firm specializing in community corrections, have run the center.
It's designed to help deal with repeat offenders -- recidivists -- who need extra supervision. Brian Cooley, chief probation officer, signed up for the public-private partnership last year.
So far, 193 adults and 202 juveniles have been involved in the program. The average stay for adults is 144 days, for juveniles 87. Forty-six adults have "graduated," and 60 juveniles.
In criminal justice lingo, the average recidivism predictive rate among those who enter the one-story building is about 60 percent; among those who finish, that rate of failure drops to 25 percent. When they walked through the door and took their first daily alcohol-detection test, one in three of the adults held a job. When they were discharged, three out of four were employed.
"They have to work through 17 steps," Cooley says. "You can't pimp the program -- either you're making progress or you're back in county jail."
Patty Carter, BI's local program manager, explains that the center offers classes -- anger management, life skills -- that require homework. Participants learn practical skills, such as how to introduce themselves to an employer, how to build a resume, basic math and English, how to apply for jobs and schools online.
Back to the eight probationers.
Willie Green, 58, is their Michael Jordan.
In 2008, he was released from San Quentin where he spent 25 years of a life term for supposedly murdering a 25-year-old woman in a Los Angeles crack house in 1983, according to CNN.
She was killed by several sawed-off shotgun blasts, the network reported. The main prosecution witness fingered Green. He was convicted and sent up the river. In 1991, he wrote private investigator Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, who agreed to look into his case.
After years of investigating, according to Steve Weinberg in "Legal Affairs Magazine," McCloskey's evidence persuaded a California Superior Court judge to free Green. The judge ruled that the sole identifying witness "lacked credibility," Weinberg wrote.
Willie walked.
On Wednesday, Green, who lives in Fresno, sat in a chair facing the eight grownups -- six men, two women; three whites, three blacks, two Latinas. For two hours they turned pages in a BI-issued booklet aimed to change their thinking from criminal to rational.
They were there for drug charges, probation violations, DUI, burglary. All but one responded to Green's Socratic questioning.
The booklet presented them with various scenarios: A door is open in a store; an elderly woman's purse rests in a shopping cart in a big-box outlet. What would you do? What should you do?
Their answers fly thick and fast around the room. On one page, the book listed "Thinking Errors," and the probationers must fill in several boxes with their answers.
"What's criminal thinking?" Green asks.
"Whenever you get that thought and act on it," replies a blond man, his front teeth missing.
"Not thinking at all," adds a man in a white shirt.
A black man in sweat pants says, "Screw it -- who cares? Entitlement -- I worked all day."
A man in dreadlocks mutters, "I don't know."
For two hours they turn the pages. Green asks more questions. Seven of them answer. When he talks, he sounds like a cross between Scatman Crothers in "The Shining" and Rochester on the old Jack Benny radio show.
Green adds his own text. "Thinking errors bring on criminal behavior," he says. "You don't think (miming talking on a cell phone), 'Come on down, man! Bring a truck!'"
Seven of them laugh.
That's the pattern.
All but one man offer personal experiences:
"It's an obsession."
"I was arrested seven times in one day."
"I've never been arrested sober."
"I've got a 17-year-old son. I want to be a positive in his life. If I'm in jail, I can't help him."
"Bein' high, trippin', sellin' to undercover cops."
"I didn't have contact with my mom for three years because when I was high, I called her on every phone she had."
"My probation officer could call over here and tell 'em to test me."
(Besides the daily alcohol testing, each BI "client" is given a word, and when it randomly pops up on the company computer, that person is tested for drugs that day.)
Green tells them that Gandhi was locked up for 27 years on two continents.
"We remember Martin Luther King's letters from a Birmingham jail. John the Baptist, Daniel, Moses -- all locked up. You're in good company."
Green got a college degree behind bars. He now owns his own home. He adopted a 10-year-old girl. As he tells them about his plans to take her to McDonald's after work, tears leak from the corner of his eyes. He wipes them with his fingers.
Before his murder trial, he was far from a role model. He was arrested dozens of times on charges ranging from minor to serious, according to a criminal defense lawyer, Daniel Horowitz, quoted in the "Daily Journal" by Jeffrey Anderson.
Near the end of the session, juveniles wearing ankle monitoring bracelets file by in the hallway outside the open doors of the warm room.
The session is nearly over. "If I can just save one person in this world, I've done my job," Green says. The probationers gather their purses and booklets and other possessions and file out.
They'll be back tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, until the county and BI pronounce them fit to leave. Or don't.
"People just think it's so simple," Cooley was saying earlier that day. "'Just put 'em on an island.' I'd hate to be a kid growing up today."
Cooley is scheduled to retire in August. He wants to leave behind a successful experiment. Already, Napa, Sonoma and Monterey counties are following what he started here.
The county/BI approach both saves money from not jailing people and, if enough of them stay straight, the county gets more state funds to hasten the probationers' assimilation back into our community.
"It's not a hug-a-thon," Cooley insists. "We hold them accountable. We can't keep sending people to prison. This costs a lot less."
Back in the classroom, Willie Green has loosened his regimental-striped tie over his dark blue shirt. How many out of this group will make it?
"Two," he says quietly. "Two."
For a man inside the walls for nearly half his life, two is a good number.
Mike Tharp, Merced Sun-Star
