SYSTEM AT ITS WORST

WITH the massive de-institutionalization of mentally impaired people across
the state growing numbers of befuddled Californians are showing up in Jai1s
and prisons. One of them is Duane Silva, who in 1994 earned the dubious
distinction of becoming one of the state's earliest "three strikes"
defendants.

A 23-year-old from Tulare, with an IQ of 70 the mental capacity of a
10-year-old), Silva is serving a third strike, 28-years-to-life prison
sentence for stealing a VCR and some Jewelry in a residential burglary. His
previous strikes were for arson: the first when he set fire to a trash can
and the second after a fire began in a truck where it appeared he'd been
playing with matches.

In a recent study, Joan Petersilia, a professor of criminology at the
University of California. Irvine, uses the story of Silva to illustrate the
criminal Justice system's callous mistreatment and disregard of the
retarded. Because they're often illiterate, unemployed and unable to
understand their rights or to assist with their own defense, mentally
retarded suspects are less likely to make bail or probation and more likely
to confess or incriminate themselves. The formality and rapid legalistic
patter of the courtroom confuse and intimidate them.

Once convicted and imprisoned, they're easy prey for cruel exploitation by
more intelligent in-mates. They become disciplinary problems because they
don't understand and therefore don't know strict prison rules. Thus, they
spend more time in solitary confinement and seldom earn early release. The
same disabilities that make them poor defendants and inmates make them less
successful on parole.

Evervone who testified at last week's Senate Public Safety Committee
hearing on the subject cops, prosecutors, public defenders, advocates for
the mentally retarded acknowledged the problem and the need to address it.
They called for better training at every level, from judges to prosecutors,
defense attorneys to prison guards. But simply recognizing mental
retardation and how to handle an impaired suspect may not be sufficient.
Rules may have to be changed to ensure that the mentally incapacitated
receive the rights to which they are entitled.

The issue is not new. Retarded people, most of them never formally
diagnosed, have long made up a disproportionate share of our criminal and
prison populations. Their numbers are growing, fueled in part by the rapid
closure of state hospitals and the increased rates of mental retardation
caused by drug and alcohol abuse and poor nutrition among pregnant women.
In addition, there are growing numbers of low-birth-weight babies, and
increasing survival rates to adulthood for those born with birth defects.
One sobering statistic included in the Peters study noted that while the
general population of California in-creased 20 percent between 1985 and
1996, the number of people identified as developmentally disabled or
mentally retarded increased 52 per-cent and the number of people showing
signs of mild retardation doubled.

Criminal Justice systems in many other states do more to protect both the
public and retarded people. If basic humanity and concern for public safety
fail to motivate California lawmakers and to date, neither of those have,
economics should. Siva and an estimated 6,400 other mentally retarded
inmates incarcerated in California cost $21,000 per inmate per year to
maintain.