Yaroslavsky on L.A.’s ‘Confounding Election’

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to media outlets including Governing and the Financial Times about the contest between Karen Bass and Rick Caruso to become L.A.’s next mayor. While housing, homelessness and public safety have been central issues in the campaign, the leaked audio of City Council members using racist language has become a wild-card factor. The recording contributed to “a sense that the city is broken,” Yaroslavsky said, but he added that it’s not clear whether voters will be motivated to “kick out the bums” or stay home out of cynicism. “You have a city that has changed and a population that is willing to elect people that don’t necessarily look like them — and then this happens, and the danger is that people revert back to their camps,” he said. “It’s really one of the most confounding elections I can remember.” Yaroslavsky also spoke with CBS Los Angeles about the impact rainy weather could have on voter turnout.

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Monkkonen on Newsom’s Housing Pledge

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Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, was cited in a CalMatters article about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ambitious plans to build housing in California and his struggle to bring them to fruition. In 2017, the governor made a campaign promise to build 3.5 million homes by 2025 but has since revised the goal with a proposal to build 2.5 million homes by 2030. To date, only about 452,000 homes have been issued permits. The governor’s goal of including 1 million affordable units in the new construction has also faced setbacks. Building affordable homes puts enormous pressure on cities because of a lack of state subsidies and tax credits to fund the projects. “We’re funding a quarter of that, at best. So that’s an interesting conundrum, where their own goal is unattainable,” Monkonnen said. While Newsom’s administration has struggled to fulfill the pledges, the number of affordable homes built in recent years has nonetheless significantly increased.

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Panofsky on Science, Rhetoric and White Nationalism

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Inside Higher Ed spoke to Aaron Panofsky, professor of public policy, about the launch of UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate, which supports research into understanding and mitigating hatred among social groups. Panofsky will lead one of 23 projects representing several disciplines. His research will explore how white nationalists use and reject scientific research and language in their rhetoric online. Hate is popularly perceived as the emotion felt “when you want to lash out against someone,” Panofsky said. But the ways white nationalists painstakingly attempt to back up their claims with scientific research show hate is more than a knee-jerk emotional reaction. “Part of our study is about how complicated hate can become, especially when it’s connected with science or an ostensibly rational discourse,” said Panofsky, who directs the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics.

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Peterson on Prop. 29 and Voter Skepticism

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Public Policy interim chair Mark Peterson spoke to the Los Angeles Times about controversies surrounding Proposition 29, which would require a licensed medical professional to be present while dialysis patients are receiving treatment at the state’s 600 dialysis centers. The measure would also require centers to disclose physician ownership interests and patient infection data. Peterson said voters are often skeptical about issues that they are not properly informed about — in this case, the “high levels of technical detail” about the treatment and care that dialysis patients need. That skepticism is heightened when private interests are involved, he said. “When there is a special interest from one side or the other that’s really pushing a particular ballot initiative, voters add on to their underlying suspicion this general skepticism of why is the ballot initiative process being used by a special interest?”

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Grant to Support Study of ‘Lifers’ Who Are Given a Second Chance Project led by Laura Abrams of UCLA Social Welfare will focus on people convicted of offenses committed when they were under 18

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Social Welfare chair Laura Abrams  has received a grant of $860,000 to lead an extensive national study of young people sentenced to life in prison who are ultimately given a chance at freedom.

The three-year study, funded by the Houston-based philanthropy Arnold Ventures, aims to build a base of knowledge that supports safe and equitable sentencing and “second-look” policies for people sentenced to life for offenses committed before they were 18 years old. Many have spent years or decades behind bars.

“This research seeks to answer critical policy questions,” Abrams said. “Can we develop a set of evidence-informed policies that provide second chances for people serving long sentences for violent crimes? Can we reduce our overreliance on long sentences in the future without compromising public safety?”

Abrams and an interdisciplinary team of scholars from across the country will focus on a subset of the “lifer” population — the roughly 2,800 people who were convicted of homicide as minors after being tried in adult criminal courts.

Harsh sentences of youth convicted of violent offenses increased dramatically during the “tough on crime” 1980s and 1990s, but two U.S. Supreme Court rulings over the past 10 years held that mandatory life sentences for minors are unconstitutional. This paved the way for the release of hundreds of people.

Working with data collected by the nonprofits the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and the Sentencing Project, Abrams and her colleagues will track those who have been freed as well as those who remain incarcerated to determine whether releases are conducted equitably. They will also assess the level of preparation for reentry into the community and the risk of a return to criminal behavior.

The team includes experts from UCLA, University of Cincinnati, Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan, Northwestern University and Temple University, representing disciplines such as social work, human development and behavior, public health and criminology.

While the research will focus on those incarcerated as minors, the findings can be used as a foundation for broader reforms of sentencing and second-chance policies.

“This study has strong potential to inform policies related to the over 50% of U.S. prisoners serving sentences of 10 years or more,” Abrams said.

Astor on School Gun Violence: No Justice, No Closure

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Social Welfare professor Ron Avi Astor spoke to CNN about the ongoing issue of gun violence at U.S. schools. “When there’s a disaster that happens and it’s done and over with, then you could look back and we could come together as a country,” Astor said. “But when it’s happening every week, over and over and over again, there is no justice or closure, because it’s not done. We’re in the midst of it, as a collective, as a country.” Astor said he is optimistic change can come but believes the media must reform the way it reports on shootings, without glamorizing events and polarizing discussions. “This is about … working together with an ideal of who we want to be as a society,” he said, calling for ground-level dialogue that works toward restorative justice. Astor and a group of academics released an eight-point gun violence prevention plan earlier this year.

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Graduate Students and Mentors Connect at Senior Fellows Breakfast

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UCLA Luskin graduate students connected with prominent community, government and business leaders at the 2022 Senior Fellows Breakfast at the UCLA Faculty Club. As the Luskin School’s premier mentoring and networking initiative, the Senior Fellows Program matches master’s students in public policy, social welfare and urban planning with mentors who offer career guidance and leadership development. During the Oct. 26 breakfast, two speakers offered advice on how to make the most of the opportunity: mentor Daniel Lee MSW ’15, mayor of Culver City, and MPP student Alicia Nyein, who is entering her second year in the program. Guests also viewed a video remembering VC Powe, a UCLA Luskin staff member and champion of the Senior Fellows Program for many years until her death in 2020. Mentors and their students then had an opportunity to become better acquainted as they embarked on a yearlong partnership focused on engagement in the public service arena.

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Senior Fellows Breakfast 2022

Pierce on Rising Cost of Water Amid California’s Drought

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about Californians struggling to pay skyrocketing water bills. “Water prices are going up for the next several decades, so we need some assistance program in place like we have in so many other sectors,” Pierce said. “Water is pretty much the first service that the government can and should provide.” About 13 million Californians in low-income communities are suffering from high water bills during the current drought, and many must choose between paying for electricity or water. Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 222, which would have required water systems in California to offer rate assistance to residential water customers. His reasoning was because the program lacked a source of funding, but Pierce said that signing the bill would have been an important step in the right direction.

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