Survey shows attitudes of Californians toward criminal justice are at odds with public policy.

By Teresa Watanabe
Times Staff Writer

Californians across racial and ethnic lines overwhelmingly support rehabilitation over incarceration for juveniles and adult nonviolent offenders, and back public spending
on education rather than prisons, according to a new poll by a San Francisco-based ethnic media network.

The poll of 1,854 California adults in 12 languages revealed a striking disconnect between sentiment favoring more alternatives to imprisonment and public policies that
have led to a sixfold growth in California's prison population since 1980.

"This whole concept of building more and more prisons — that is the wrong priority in the opinion of majorities of all ethnic groups," said Sergio Bendixen of Bendixen &
Associates, which conducted the poll for New California Media, a network of more than 400 ethnic news outlets throughout the state.

The network has pioneered statewide multilingual polling over the past two years, conducting surveys in a dozen languages on such subjects as ethnic media, health care,
the Iraq war and the effects of Sept. The latest poll was conducted last May in English, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean,
Tagalog, Hindi and Japanese.

Among the state's 34 million residents, nonwhites now comprise the majority and 40% speak a language other than English at home. But the views of non-English
speakers are not fully reflected in most other public polls, said Sandy Close, New California Media's executive director.

The survey was funded by the Open Society Institute and the JEHT Foundation, two New York-based organizations that have advocated alternatives to incarceration.
Close said, however, that the poll was "completely nonpartisan and objective."

In what Bendixen called one of the most surprising results, American Indians emerged as generally more conservative on criminal justice issues than other minority
groups.

They were more likely than blacks, Latinos, Asians/Middle Easterners or non-Latino whites to support revoking former convicts' right to vote, and the group least likely
to back government college loans for ex-convicts. More than other groups, American Indians also said prison conditions were too comfortable for inmates.

American Indians, who reported the highest rate of crime victimhood, also voiced stronger support for the death penalty for murderers, at 67%, than any other ethnic
group. Latinos and African Americans expressed the lowest support, at 41% and 34%, respectively.

Previous New California Media polls showed significant differences between nonwhite immigrant Californians and the general population — immigrants showing less
support for the war in Iraq, for instance. But the new survey showed striking agreement on several criminal justice issues. On most questions, the views of ethnic
Californians did not significantly differ from their non-Latino white counterparts.

The poll showed, for instance, that the majority of Californians surveyed expressed skepticism about the fairness of the state's criminal justice system, believing it
favored the rich and powerful. That view was held by 88% of blacks, 75% of American Indians, 60% of whites, 59% of Latinos and 54% of Asians/Middle Easterners.

Majorities of all groups surveyed rated their local police as excellent or good. Strikingly, 58% of African Americans gave their police high marks — even though
three-fourths of them said they believed people with dark skin or foreign accents were harassed by police more often than others.

And, at a time when California's juvenile justice system is facing growing criticism for overly harsh conditions, strong majorities in all groups seemed to favor more
lenient treatment of youthful offenders.

Majorities polled opposed the death penalty for juveniles and favored spending money on rehabilitation rather than incarceration for them.