Source: Voice of San Diego
Three dozen sheriff’s officers and Metropolitan Transit System
security officers board the trolley as it pulls into Lemon Grove
station. They go car to car, person to person, checking that everyone
paid a fare.
If you don’t have one, you’re asked to step off the train for more questioning. In the next few hours, they’ll write a bunch of citations, but the Sheriff’s Department isn’t actually concerned with $2.50 fares.
Its four-month “Operation Lemon Drop” was really about targeting a handful of the county’s 1,175 ex-inmates released from prison under realignment without parole or probation requirements— “the worst of the worst,” as Commander Dave Myers calls them.
The department combs available information to determine which
ex-inmates are “prolific offenders” and sets up dragnets in public
places they might pass through, like the Lemon Grove trolley station.
It’s an example of intelligence-led policing — analyzing data to direct police resources — but it’s also a major part of the county’s response to realignment, the 2011 law that shifted the burden of incarcerating low-level felons from the state to counties.
The idea is to identify people likely to commit serious crimes, and create an opportunity to arrest them for something else before that happens.
“Let’s say I’m a gangster who likes to steal cars and I’ve done armed robberies before, but on this day I’m just in possession of meth,” Myers said. “I’m going to use that against them. I’m going to arrest them, go after them and use their vulnerability because I know they’re a drug user or something, and I’ve probably prevented another robbery, another stolen car or something like that. That’s kind of the basic formula.”
But the effort to track and target people who’ve been released from jail raises concerns in concept and in practice. There’s the creepy “Minority Report”-esque “pre-crime” element. Plus, Operation Lemon Drop’s final numbers show that only 1 percent of people contacted by law enforcement were ultimately arrested, including some for misdemeanors.
If you don’t have one, you’re asked to step off the train for more questioning. In the next few hours, they’ll write a bunch of citations, but the Sheriff’s Department isn’t actually concerned with $2.50 fares.
Its four-month “Operation Lemon Drop” was really about targeting a handful of the county’s 1,175 ex-inmates released from prison under realignment without parole or probation requirements— “the worst of the worst,” as Commander Dave Myers calls them.
It’s an example of intelligence-led policing — analyzing data to direct police resources — but it’s also a major part of the county’s response to realignment, the 2011 law that shifted the burden of incarcerating low-level felons from the state to counties.
The idea is to identify people likely to commit serious crimes, and create an opportunity to arrest them for something else before that happens.
“Let’s say I’m a gangster who likes to steal cars and I’ve done armed robberies before, but on this day I’m just in possession of meth,” Myers said. “I’m going to use that against them. I’m going to arrest them, go after them and use their vulnerability because I know they’re a drug user or something, and I’ve probably prevented another robbery, another stolen car or something like that. That’s kind of the basic formula.”
But the effort to track and target people who’ve been released from jail raises concerns in concept and in practice. There’s the creepy “Minority Report”-esque “pre-crime” element. Plus, Operation Lemon Drop’s final numbers show that only 1 percent of people contacted by law enforcement were ultimately arrested, including some for misdemeanors.
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