More rain hits Santa Barbara and residents are asked to evacuate, the country's largest health system tries to turnaround, mapping out CA's hate groups.
Hate groups are on the rise in California
According to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the country has risen by 4 percent compared to last year. In its annual Hate and Extremism Report, the SPLC, the nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights, counted 954 groups nationally, with a large portion from California.
The reason, the SPLC says, is the increase of racially charged political rhetoric and organized reaction to that rhetoric from other groups.
is a senior investigative reporter with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he joined the show to talk about the rise of hate groups in California.
The Hate Map -- explained
The Hate Map is an annual effort by the SPLC to locate and identify those organizations and the chapters of those organizations that profess demonizing rhetoric and extremism and hate across the county. And ultimately to find out where organized hate is most concentrated and most organized.
How California's hate groups compare with other states
There are 75 hate groups in California. If you look at the map nationally, California has more hate groups than any other state, but adjusted per capita, that's just not true. Other states have more hate groups based on their populations, but California has always been a hotbed of hate and extremism ... Hate groups tend to congregate on the coasts and in the South ... States like California and New York tend to have more demographic diversity, and it is in those locations that hate groups tend to pop up most, because when presented with diversity, that hate makes a more profound appearance ...
What officials, law enforcement and the general public can do to combat the rise in hate
There's a lot of things ... in the public sphere, police departments need to understand that this speech is protected by the 1st Amendment, but these are ideas that routinely and consistently lead to violence. On a community level it is important to make these racists know where your community sits with relationship to these ideas, you know, speak ... speak just as loudly as they do and the message will resonate ...
Health care revamp at LA County jails
Michael Callahan, an outgoing 43-year-old carpenter, landed in a Los Angeles County jail last September because of what he said were “bad decisions and selling drugs.”
He had uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure when he arrived, but his health was the last thing on his mind. Consumed by a meth addiction, he hadn’t taken his medications for months. “When I got here, I was a wreck,” said Callahan, who is stocky and covered in tattoos. “My legs were so swollen that if I bumped them they would break open.”
By January, however, his diabetes was improving and his blood pressure had dropped. Now, he takes his medications daily and sees a doctor every two months. Even as he counts the days until his release this summer, Callahan knows he is getting much-needed medical care. “I’m where I need to be, not where I want to be,” he said.
Callahan’s situation is counterintuitive: He may end up leaving jail healthier than when he arrived. Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services hope to see more cases like his as they embark on an ambitious effort to improve health care for jail inmates. Their project follows decades of complaints, lawsuits and reports of poor medical and mental health care at the Los Angeles County jails, which house about 18,000 inmates on any given day.
The county’s overhaul is designed to raise the quality of health care behind bars and better equip inmates to manage their health after they are released. But the challenges are enormous – the population is disproportionately sick, and the jails weren’t designed to be medical facilities.
The innovative effort at one of the nation’s biggest jail systems is based on a logical premise: Inmates don’t stay in jail for long – the average stay is just 60 days – so it’s a crucial opportunity to diagnose and begin treating their diseases.
“People are there for just a blip in time, days, weeks, months … and they’re returning back to the community,” said Mark Ghaly, director of community health for the county Department of Health Services. “What happens in the jail matters.”
The county health agency took over medical care in the jails from the LA County Sheriff’s Department in 2015 and started revamping the system in earnest last year.
The main health clinic at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles is located just inside a large metal gate. Inmates there and at all the LA county jails can get a wide variety of medical and behavioral care. “It’s a giant health system and it’s complex,” said Margarita Pereyda, chief medical officer of correctional health services for LA County. “We are a hybrid between a hospital and an ER and an outpatient kind of environment.”
Part of the plan is to make clinics inside the jails more like ones on the outside. That means assigning inmates to primary care doctors to manage their chronic diseases and getting them appointments and medications quickly. It also means expanding treatment for mental health and substance abuse and referring those who need advanced medical or behavioral care to specialists who work for the county.
It’s a monumental job: Nearly half of all inmates have at least one chronic disease, including about 450 who have HIV and 900 with diabetes. About two-thirds of inmates are addicted to drugs or alcohol, and about a quarter have serious mental illnesses.
“Very few people have chronic illness under good control,” Ghaly said. ”The jails have largely become treatment facilities.”
To improve inmates’ access to care, county officials launched a physician recruitment effort this month. They released a series of online videos featuring medical providers with the slogan “Mission Possible.” As an incentive, they are offering to pay up to $120,000 in medical school debt for each of the new hires who need it. That strategy has been used to lure doctors to low-income communities around the United States.
Esther Lim, who directs the jails project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said she is optimistic care will improve, but she still hears daily from inmates about delays in appointments and medications. And, she said, people are still dying inside the LA County jails – an average of 25 each year, according to the health department.
“It’s an indication that there is something wrong, that the delivery of medical care is still poor,” Lim said. Overcrowding can result in inmates’ health being neglected and deteriorating over time, she said. County health officials acknowledge the situation is not going to change overnight. The county is “making some great headway,” but “there are some things that you can change more quickly than others,” said Ed Matzen, clinical nursing director for the jails.
Lello Tesema, a primary care physician and director of population health for the county jails, said many of her patients have gone without care on the outside for a long time. As soon as she gets a new patient, Tesema takes a medical and personal history. Then she creates a plan with the patient, knowing she only has a limited amount of time to implement it.
One early morning in January, Tesema examined Callahan, the carpenter, on an exam table in a room just off a busy corridor around the corner from his dorm-style cell. She said the swelling in his legs had diminished and his blood sugar level was looking good. “We’re moving in the right direction,” she told him. On the way back to his bunk, Callahan stopped at a window to pick up a pill for his diabetes.
Tesema said she worries about the health of her patients after they get out of jail even though they leave with a referral to a county clinic and 30 days’ worth of medication – up from three days in the past. “Often I see patients come back and a lot of the successes that happened while they were here end up diminishing after they leave,” she said.
Tesema and other medical providers in the jail must manage the inherent tension between safety and medical care. Sometimes, doctors have to see patients in their cells or treat them when they are handcuffed, Tesema said.
Jason Wolak, a captain in the medical services bureau of the Sheriff’s Department, said deputies are making an effort to get more inmates to medical appointments. “We’re the Uber for medical,” he said. He added that the Sheriff’s Department needs more staff, especially for transporting inmates to outside specialists or to the county-run hospitals.
Since patients also are going to court, attending classes or meeting with their lawyers, scheduling medical visits can be a challenge, Ghaly said. “There’s a high no-show rate to appointments.”
Pereyda said the new system for providing care at the jails depends on current doctors changing their mindset – things as simple as calling people patients rather than inmates.
“We can figure out the logistics and we can figure out the resources, but shifting the way people think and act is going to be our biggest challenge,” she said. Hiring new doctors who believe in the mission of health care behind bars will help, she added.
Among some inmates, attitudes about their own health are already beginning to shift.
Callahan said he’s determined to stay sober and continue monitoring his health when he gets out. “I’m 43 years old and that’s not the age to be screwing around with diabetes,” he said.
March Madness, the FBI and the NCAA
March madness is about to kick into high gear, and usually that means a lot of excitement and money for the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The NCAA generates almost a billion dollars a year in revenue, and most of comes from the men's basketball tournament, with much of it going back to member schools.
But a recent FBI probe into corruption in college sports has made a lot of people even more critical of the NCAA ... even NBA superstar LeBron James (who famously skipped college to go pro) weighed in on the topic.
We'll talk about it with regular contributors Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.
Serena Williams is back on the court with plans to compete at Indian Wells
Four billboards outside Palm Springs, California, are proclaiming tennis star Serena Williams to be "The Greatest Momma of All Time."
The signs are courtesy of Williams' husband to welcome her back to the competitive tennis world following the birth of their daughter. Williams is scheduled to compete in the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells next week.
Take Two spoke to Ava Wallace, sports reporter of the Washington Post, about the tennis champ's return. Wallace said Williams is the clear leader of the pack in women's tennis, and now that she's back, other players will be working to up their game.
Williams' popularity as an athlete and a cultural icon could also mean there will now be more eyes watching the tennis scene, Wallace said.
She's a crossover athlete. People care about her. People who are pop culture fans, people who are sports fans, people who are just on the internet and follow the news are fans of Serena Williams.
Williams isn't the first woman to come back to sports after having a child. Wallace said moms returning to competition is becoming more common, but there aren't many examples in tennis.
Kim Clijster returned to the court after her daughter was born and won several Grand Slams. However, Clijster took off more time than Williams, so what Williams is trying to do is unheard of, Wallace said.
She says she wants to win two more Grand Slams to get the Grand Slam record, and she gave birth six months ago. That's certainly unprecedented, event though there are definitely more moms competing nowadays.
Since giving birth to her daughter, the road back to tennis hasn't been easy for Williams. She has spoken about the health complications she had after giving birth and couldn't really get our of bed for six weeks, Wallace said. Now that she's back on the practice court, Williams has be honest about how getting back into her routine has been difficult.
Wallace said Williams wasn't at her best when she played at the Fed Cup earlier this month.
Her power, her arm speed was definitely still there, but the movement was a little slow, her accuracy was a little off, all things that tend to fall away when you haven't been practicing and really keeping up with your routine.
Indian Wells will be a very different, more intense environment for Williams compared to the Fed Cup, Wallace said, which makes it hard to know what to expect. Even if Williams isn't at her best at Indian Wells, Wallace said to remember that this is just the start of a long process as the tennis star gets back into the game.
Why these art collectors in Orange County are focusing on artists of color
Gianna and Dee Kerrison are married executives who work in the financial service sector. But you could say their life's work is collecting art, specifically, the work of African Americans and other artists of color.
They're among Southern California's best-known collectors of work by such artists. KPCC's Josie Huang spoke to the couple before the holidays and Dee explained how they first got started after moving from New York to Orange County almost 20 years ago.
"We were used to a huge amount of culture, and Newport Beach was relatively culturally bereft," said Dee Kerrison, "especially when we moved down there. So, we always went to Los Angeles."
Their collecting started with photography, but when they began to hyperfocus on Los Angeles, it shifted to contemporary art.
Dee: "We like work that reflects our experience. You know, we're African American, my parents are from the south, they're part of that great migration. So, we sort of like work that tells a story, arguably, work that's political."
For the Kerrisons, it wasn't only about collecting art but helping artists navigate the intimidating waters of the art world.
Gianna: "We may not be able to financially pay for or financially afford the work, but what we find important is being there to support them...I think it's a really important thing to follow them through their journey."
The Kerrisons also spoke about how things have changed for artists of color since they began collecting and where they hope things will go in the future.