When George Gascón was campaigning to become the District Attorney of Los Angeles County, he wasn't coy about his plans if he were to win the office.
Gascón, who formerly served as district attorney in San Francisco, said he would overhaul the way the D.A.'s office approached criminal prosecutions, with a focus on equity and rehabilitation of defendants over punishment. And that message was good enough to beat incumbent Jackie Lacey by over a quarter-million votes.
But within the first week of taking office, Gascón faced intense criticisms from his own prosecutors, he got push back from LA County Sheriff Alex Villaneuva and an outcry from some crime victims who claim his policies have abandoned them.
Less than six months after he was sworn in, Gascón is facing a recall effort. Those pursuing a recall would need nearly 500,000 signatures by the end of October to make the ballot.
“The reality is, these are people who’ve aggressively campaigned against me. Some of these folks, the week I was sworn in tried to start a recall motion and they were told they had to wait 90 days,” Gascón tells KNX In-Depth hosts Mike Simpson and Charles Feldman. “The organizers are people who’ve benefited from an outdated system that has created a tremendous amount of inequity,” he says.
Violent crime in Los Angeles County in the last eight years (before COVID) has gone up by nearly 25%, according to the U.S. Justice Department numbers.
“When it comes to victims it’s always going to people who are going to want retribution. But there have been multiple studies done, including a poll taken recently in LA County, and 60% of victims of crime, their complaint against my office is that we did not provide enough trauma-informed care. They want accountability, but they want rehabilitation. And there’s about 40% who want retribution,” Gascón said.
Gascón says he has to be as concerned with the community and the victims as he does with the accused.
When asked about his plan for bringing justice to LA County, Gascón says his prescription is "using data and science to get better results." He talked about recidivism and systemic racism, creating a lack of trust in the system.
In the one year since the death of George Floyd, Gascón says “What the Black community can expect, and what I’m trying to do in the criminal justice system is to a place where regardless of your race, regardless of your economic status, regardless of where you come from, the criminal justice system is going to treat you with fairness, respect, and equity.
"What is occurring and has occurred in the history of this country is that Black people never get a fair shake from the criminal, legal system. There is racism deeply embedded into our system that goes all the way back to the beginning of time. And we know that the Black community continues to suffer from over-policing and a system that doesn’t give them a fair shake.”
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