David Berger (attorney)
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David Berger is a Deputy District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles, California.
From 2002 to 2004, Berger was assigned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in Lancaster, California where he introduced and coordinated a controversial anti-crime program called "LAN-CAP," an acronym derived from the program's formal title; Lancaster Community Appreciation Project.
LAN-CAP's roots were founded in three basic concepts of community prosecution:
Identifying and targeting high crime areas,
Promulgating and enforcing anti-crime legislation in the form of local ordinances, and
Creating a permanent dedicated task force to address quality of life crimes.
A significant part of LAN-CAP focused on the exclusion of convicted felons from high-crime areas in the community. The so-called "Crime Free Zones" of the City of Lancaster were, in fact, areas with the highest crime statistics. Accordingly, the City of Lancaster passed an ordinance declaring these areas "Crime Free Zones" in order that convicted criminals who were either on probation or parole could be excluded from those areas.
The Crime Free Zone notion attracted national media attention and considerable condemnation from civil liberties associations such as the ACLU. CNN's American Morning carried a live, heated discussion where Berger debated ACLU Director Raymond Vasvari over the merits of the program. Vasvari argued that convicted felons had already paid their debt to society and should be free to move about the city without restriction. However, Berger pointed out that convicted felons who had been released from prison or jail early, and who were on probation or parole, had not yet paid their debt to society, that was why they are on probation or parole, and that was why it was lawful to impose reasonable restrictions on their movements and associations.
If the ACLU did not approve of LAN-CAP's Crime Free Zones ("CFZ"), the City of Lancaster clearly did, the city council unanimously passed Lancaster Municipal Ordinance 9.32, the ordinance necessary to create CFZ's. The Christian Science Monitor reported extensively on the debate and passage of this ordinance, and overall, appeared to favor the plan.
The creation of CFZ's gave LAN-CAP the ability to target criminals who continued commit crimes in the city, however, faced with statewide budget cuts, the Sheriff's Department lacked sufficient personnel to adequately police the CFZ's and so Berger introduced another controversial plan to relieve the pressure on existing law enforcement by creating a task force dedicated to reducing crime in rental housing; The LAN-CAP Crime Free Rental Housing Program. By imposing a business license requirement on landlords, sufficient funds were raised to provide for a dedicated task force of sheriff's deputies to police rental communities, thus releasing existing law enforcement resources to tackle crime in other areas, notably the CFZs.
In May 2004, with LAN-CAP firmly established, funding for Berger's position lapsed and he was transferred to the Major Fraud Division of the Office, however, the LAN-CAP project continued unabated thanks to local support. Lancaster Sheriff's Station continues to fulfill the goals of LAN-CAP with eight deputies and a sergeant permanently assigned to LAN-CAP.
