By Jessica Farris, @jessraefarris

Californians have a historic opportunity to bring about needed and long-overdue criminal justice reform by voting Yes on Proposition 47.
This measure would:

• Improve public safety
• Reduce prison spending
• Increase our investment in K-12 schools, victims’ services and mental health and drug treatment.

Proposition 47, the Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act, will be on the ballot this November. It would change the lowest-level, non-violent crimes such as simple drug possession and petty theft from felonies to misdemeanors. The savings would go toward preventing crime.

If it passes, California will lead the nation in ending felony sentencing for the lowest level, non-violent crimes, permanently reduce incarceration and shift $1 billion in the next five years alone from the state corrections department to K-12 school programs and mental health and drug treatment.
This reform maintains the current law for anyone with prior convictions for rape, murder or child molestation.
At the same time, Prop 47 reduces the barriers that many people with a low-level, non-violent felony conviction face to becoming stable and productive citizens, such as a lack of employment, housing and access to assistance programs and professional trades.

Yes on Proposition 47 is supported by law enforcement leaders, crime victims, teachers, rehabilitation experts, business leaders, faith-based leaders and civil rights organizations, as well as the ACLU of California.
This reform will focus our law enforcement resources on violent and serious crime, and use the savings in prison spending to prevent crime.
Don’t forget to vote Yes on Proposition 47 on November 4. The deadline to register to vote is October 20. You can register to vote online.
You can make this historic opportunity a reality by taking action in your community. See below.
Jessica Farris is policy and advocacy counsel at the ACLU of Southern California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.

Step up your ACLU game and sign up for a phone bank or canvassing opportunity to help pass Prop 47:

Los Angeles County (Sign up online)
Phone banks:

• Tues, Oct. 28, 6 PM-9 PM - All Saints Episcopal Church, 132 N Euclid Ave, Pasadena
• Wed, Oct. 29, 6 PM-9 PM- St. John the Baptist, 3848 Stewart Ave, Baldwin Park

Canvassing:

• Sat, Nov. 1, 9 AM-1PM- All Saints Episcopal Church, 132 N Euclid Ave, Pasadena
• Sun, Nov. 2, 9 AM-1:30 PM- SCOPE 1715 West Florence Ave., Los Angeles

Riverside/IE (RSVP to Lyzzeth Mendoza at lyzzeth@icucpico.org)
Phone banks:

• Mon- Fri 6PM-9PM- ICUC Office, 4063 Mission Inn, Riverside

San Bernardino (RSVP to Lyzzeth Mendoza at lyzzeth@icucpico.org)
Phone banks:

• Mon- Fri 6PM-9PM- Saint John's San Bernardino 1407 N. Arrowhead Ave, San Bernardino
• Saturdays from 10AM-2PM - Saint John's San Bernardino 1407 N. Arrowhead Ave, San Bernardino

Corona (RSVP to riversideallofusornone@gmail.com)
Phone banks:

• Mon-Fri 5:30PM-8:30PM- Shades of Afrika, 114 E 6th Street, Corona

Anaheim (RSVP to Minerva Gomez at minerva@occcopico.org)
Phone banks:

• Mondays and Thursdays 5PM-9PM OCCCO, 310 W Broadway, Anaheim

Costa Mesa (RSVP to Minerva Gomez at minerva@occcopico.org)
Phone banks:

• Fridays 3:30PM-7:30PM- St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 1015 Baker St, Costa Mesa
• Sundays 3:30-7:30 St. Joachim Catholic Church, 1964 Orange Ave, Costa Mesa

Santa Ana (RSVP to Minerva Gomez at minerva@occcopico.org)
Phone banks:

• Tuesday 5PM-9PM- Latino Health Access, 450 W 4th St #130, Santa Ana
• Wednesday 5:30PM-9:30PM and Saturday 9AM-1PM- Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, 1100 S Center St, Santa Ana

By Hector Villagra, @OHectorV

The following was originally published in the Voice of OC, "Guest Column: ACLU Calls for a Stop to Militarization of Police"
President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office warning the American people of the military-industrial complex.
He said its “total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government.”

We increasingly see its influence in our city streets because billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment has flowed from the federal government to state and local police departments. Departments now use these wartime weapons in everyday policing.
In the wake of demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown, the militarization of the police has been on full display. The media has been awash in images of armored vehicles, assault rifles, body armor, camouflage gear, gas masks and tear gas canisters, all used or carried by police officers whose chests were labeled “police” but who would look more appropriately deployed in Fallujah.
The militarization of American policing has been the direct result of federal programs.
For instance, Congress created the 1033 Program in 1990 to allow the Department of Defense to transfer excess military equipment free of charge to local law enforcement agencies. The program initially authorized the transfer of equipment that was “suitable for use by such agencies in counterdrug activities.” In 1996, Congress expanded the program’s scope to require that preference be given to transfers made for the purpose of “counterdrug and counterterrorism activities.”
Transfers to state and local police departments have increased as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down. The 1033 program has transferred more than $4.3 billion in equipment since 1997. In 2013, it provided nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, including to school police departments in California, some of which have reportedly received grenade launchers, assault rifles and other equipment, according to a report released this month.
There are few limitations or requirements imposed on agencies that participate in the 1033 Program, but one stands out. It is the requirement that agencies receiving equipment use it within one year of receipt.
This requirement, which creates a clear incentive for law enforcement agencies to find a reason to use the equipment, highlights the frightening logic at work here: that the equipment having been requisitioned, it must be used, whether abroad or at home. Indeed, in defending the program, the Defense Department's chief spokesman, John Kirby, stated: “This is excess equipment the taxpayers have paid for and we're not using anymore. And it is made available to law enforcement agencies, if they want it and if they qualify for it."
One of the more dramatic examples of police militarization is the use of SWAT teams to conduct ordinary law enforcement activities. Dr. Peter Kraska, Professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, estimates that the number of SWAT teams in small towns grew from 20 percent in the 1980s to 80 percent in the mid-2000s, and that as of the late 1990s, almost 90 percent of larger cities had them. He also estimates that the number of SWAT raids per year grew from 3,000 in the 1980s to 45,000 in the mid-2000s.
Departments created SWAT teams in the late 1960s as “quasi-militaristic” squads capable of addressing serious and violent situations that presented imminent threats such as riots, barricade and hostage scenarios and active shooter situations. In a study of SWAT deployments, however, David Klinger and Jeff Rojek, both at the University of Missouri-St. Louis’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, found that the overwhelming number of SWAT deployments were for the purpose of executing a warrant -- 34,271 for warrant service, in contrast to 7,384 for a barricaded suspect and 1,180 for hostage-taking cases.
Not all communities are affected equally by police militarization. State and local agencies have amassed and deployed military arsenals generally to wage the failed War on Drugs, a war that has been fought disproportionately in communities of color. A recent report by the ACLU, which studied more than 800 SWAT deployments by law enforcement agencies between 2011 and 2012, found that 79% of deployments were for the purpose of searching a person’s home and in those deployments 42% of the people affected were Black and 12% were Latino.
Eisenhower feared many aspects of the military-industrial complex, but he never envisioned that the weapons it created would be turned on the American people, much less a discrete subset of them.
However, his prescription – that “[o]nly an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” can ensure that “security and liberty may prosper together” – applies today. The militarization of the police has occurred largely without public discussion or oversight. The public must interject itself now.

The public has a right to know how law enforcement agencies are policing its communities and to judge whether they have unnecessarily turned many of our neighborhoods into war zones. The public should demand that state and local governments impose restraints on and provide transparency and oversight of the use of SWAT and other tactical teams.
In response to the public outcry over the excessively militarized response by local police in Ferguson, President Obama has ordered a review of federal programs that supply military equipment to local police departments. Closer to home, two California departments — San Jose and Davis — have opted to return heavily armored vehicles to the military to help keep the trust of the people they serve. The public should keep up the pressure on the government to rein these programs in and prohibit the transfer of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and armored personnel carriers.
Hector Villagra is executive director at the ACLU of Southern California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.

By Melissa Goodman, @mg718 and Ariela Migdal, @ArielaMigdal
The Directors’ Guild of America has released its annual diversity report on TV directing, and it confirms what reports have shown over the past many years: calling “Action!” is still the province of white men, with no improvement for women or women of color since last year.

Women directed only 14 percent of all episodes in 2013, and women of color directed only 2 percent of episodes, both unchanged since 2012. A full seventy of the 225 TV series analyzed – nearly a third of all shows on TV – did not hire a woman to direct a single episode.
This shut-out of women directors is an equality and civil rights issue that should concern all members of the viewing public, especially when viewed in the context of women’s under-representation in the entertainment industry more broadly.
Women, and women of color most egregiously, are overwhelmingly excluded from directing in both TV and film.  This kind of gender segregation would be concerning in any industry, but it’s especially troubling because the sector is so dominant in southern California (indeed, it’s simply known as "the industry").
But it is also concerning because what this industry produces so profoundly shapes and influences our culture. The longstanding exclusion of women and people of color (men of color directed 17 percent of episodes, up 3 percent from last year, an improvement attributable entirely to Tyler Perry directing his own shows) is more than an employment discrimination issue. It also means that the cultural content watched by millions of Americans in their homes is created almost exclusively by white men. Recently released studies once again document how this gender disparity negatively affects how women are portrayed on the screen, which, in turn impacts how women and young girls perceive themselves and their opportunities in life.
The “celluloid” ceiling is shockingly hard to crack. Recent reports have shown that what's true for directors is true for behind-the-camera jobs more broadly. One report recently showed that women make up only 23 percent of film crews, and only 2 percent of directors on 2013’s 100 top-grossing movies, and only 5 percent of workers in cameras and electrical departments.
Women directors have begun to speak out about the pervasive discrimination they face. This is important, as it’s increasingly clear that the old boys’ network in TV and film directing will not change on its own.
Are you a director who has faced discrimination? Tell us your story.
Melissa Goodman is director of the LGBT, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU of Southern California, and Ariela Migdal is attorney for the ACLU Women's Right Project. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.