-The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Bay Area, August 4, 2011 by Bobby White
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903520204576484794233725436.html

“As every county makes up its own rules—who goes on probation, who goes to state prison, who goes to jail and for how long—you will likely see big disparities between some counties,” says Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy at the Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at University of California, Berkeley.

-The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2011 by Vauhini Vara and Bobby White
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576482151386405920.html

But county plans so far are wildly uneven. “The approach California is using for realignment is, put the money on the stump and run,” said Barry Krisberg of the Earl Warren Institute of Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The state gives the money to the counties and then says, ‘Do what you want.’ “

San Francisco Chronicle, July 3, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/03/MN681K1949.DTL

“Three strikes passed during a period of time when California and the nation as a whole was swept up in panic over crime and super predator arguments—every politician, left and right, felt the need to embrace something to get away from the freight train of public fear about crime,” said Barry Krisberg, a criminal justice expert at UC Berkeley. “Three strikes never made sense—it was never a good law or policy from the inception.”

The Grio, June 30, 2011 by Monique W. Morris
http://www.thegrio.com/health/do-black-men-get-better-health-care-behind-bars.php

“By no means is it true that health care in prison is even up to minimal standards. Across the country, states are facing lawsuits because of prison-related health care crises,” said Dr. Barry Krisberg.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 16, 2011 by Victoria Colliver
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/15/BAV31JUBBP.DTL

“This argument we have to spend more to lock up fewer people is, on the face of it, illogical,” said Barry Krisberg…. Alternatives could include modest sentence reductions when appropriate, and non-jail solutions for the thousands of offenders sentenced to 90 days or fewer, Krisberg said. “In their hearts, people would [rather] have parks than prisons,” he said.

-American Public Media, Marketplace, June 6, 2011 by Jeff Tyler
http://bit.ly/kWGdZj

Barry Krisberg with UC Berkeley’s Law School says housing an inmate in prison costs about $50,000 a year. “Putting that same person on probation—even intensive probation—would be $12,000. So you’re saving an extraordinary amount of money by managing the non-dangerous people in probation.”

-San Jose Mercury News, June 8, 2011
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_18233972

California’s juvenile prison system offers evidence that locking up more people does not directly reduce crime, according to research by Barry Krisberg at the UC Berkeley School of Law. In 1996, California had 10,000 juveniles behind bars, Krisberg says. By 2010, the number had shrunk to 1,000. But instead of the spike in crime that many expected, the number of incidents has dropped.

-San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 2011 by Marisa Lagos
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/13/MN1P1JSCBV.DTL&tsp=1

Barry Krisberg … said the California District Attorneys Association has enormous sway over lawmakers and opposes most sentencing changes…. “The question is, what’s wrong with us? Are we more conservative than Virginia? Are we more irrational than North Carolina?” he said. “It’s the politics, and it’s the dilemma of this state…. It’s not the prison guards—they are not standing in the way. It’s not victims’ rights groups. It’s really the District Attorneys Association.”

-Daily News, May 26, 2011 by C.J. Lin
http://www.dailynews.com/ci_18151577?source=most_viewed

Researchers studying the effects of California’s three-strikes law have found a puzzling trend: older adults are being arrested for felonies in droves, while felony arrests of juveniles are dropping…. “In criminology, we assume that people slow down and commit fewer crimes,” said Barry Krisberg. “We may need to revisit that and look at that again.”

-KQED-FM, May 26, 2011 Host Dave Iverson
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201105260900

California’s murder rates, released this week, are at the lowest level in more than 40 years…. “Twenty years ago, there were some predicting a huge crime increase, and I think a few of us felt that those predictions were overblown, but I don’t think anybody—well, very few in criminology—were ready to predict a steady decline of the magnitude that we’ve seen.”

-San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 2011 by Demian Bulwa
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/27/MN6H1JLDAQ.DTL&type=printable

“We haven’t seen crime this low since Dwight Eisenhower was president. So it is remarkable,” said Barry Krisberg, a criminal justice expert at the UC Berkeley School of Law. “You would have bet that, given the economic downturn, you would have seen more crime. But that’s kind of a myth. We’re challenging a lot of myths.”

San Francisco Chronicle, May 4, 2011 by Matthai Kuruvila
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/04/MNV01J5LFP.DTL

Critics of Brown’s plan to shift juvenile offenders say many details have yet to be answered…. “There is no real plan,” said Barry Krisberg, director of UC Berkeley’s Earl Warren Institute, which examines a variety of public policy issues, including juvenile justice. “All this has been done by wishful thinking and ideology.”

-California Watch, March 23, 2011 by Louis Freedberg
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/state-keep-some-youth-correctional-facilities-open-9407

“Our county juvenile justice system is akin to the Wild West,” said. “There are no real standards, and as a result, practices can be good in some places and horrible in other places.”

-The American Prospect, March 29, 2011 by Steve Yoder
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=closing_the_door_on_juvenile_lockups

Barry Krisberg … applauds the move away from state lockups. But he says giving control to localities is “fraught with complicated issues,” and he fears that we’re in danger of creating a system of “justice by geography. You have a range of local options in California,” he says. “Some are not too bad; some are horrendous.”