chris la force has been caught in a web of his own making, comprised alcoholism, homelessness and endless stays at the jail for the past 20 years. look at allñi my mugshots, you would see how i progressed from being a kid, you know, a dope fiend. became a real bad drunk. inmate la force on the surface may seem like he s happy and funny and laughing and joking, but it is sad that he s been here so many times, and he
re-connect with his mother who he hasn t seen in 16 years. i found out she s in reno. i talked to her a couple of times, but not too much. if i knew, i would get on the bus, go see my mom right away, i no stopsñi in between anywhere. i m going to be on the streets for few days before i see my mom.ñi you can t be on the streets without drinking? not at all. i m an alcoholic. straight up. full blown, full blooded alcoholic. get her done, yeah! when l force first arrived, he nearly got into a fight with his assigned cellmate. going to do another lap. now he s housed with an old friend from the street who knows all about la force and his many arrests. 1,187. that s a lot of wrong choices, but he s still not a bad dude. la force s friend has a distinction of his own.
our system works. knowing we arrest the same person for the same charge over a thousand times. other than that, it takes him off the street and out of the public. so that s the good thing. he remembers the day one of his arrestsñi made the local newspaper. that was the 856th arrest. the sacramento bee mentioned my name five times and said, yeah, you got her done. ñi the pride of sacramento, heck ya. got to be pride of something. la force has been homeless for nearly as long as his arrest record is old. his hundreds of mugshots represent convictions for crimes from everything from petty theft, possession of a controlled substance, trespassing, illegal camping,
want them. he s perfectly happy where he s at. doing what he s doing. but they are offered halfway-type houses that they can go to, if they want those resources. but he goes to the same areas, the same street corners, bumming money and yelling at people. sometimes he s drunk within hours of being out. la force is assigned a cell where a problem soon arises. he repeatedly jiggles the door handle as he waits for a control room officer to unlock it. as soon as la force steps in, officers on the floor see a problem and rush to the cell. he was kind of jiggling the
loitering with intent to buy drugs, and most recently, arson. a felony conviction for which he s still on probation. i was trashed, piece of wood. the gasoline and rubbing alcohol i couldn t drink the rubbing alcohol, so it started catching on fire and it goes boom. generally, the judges can sentence them to county jail, can mandate that they take classes, put them into treatment facilities. one option for sacramento county judges is called the serial anebriate program. sponsored by a medical center and other local agencies. it provides a 90-day in-patient detox program, specifically aimed at inmates like la force. homeless men and women with an extraordinary number of arrests. la force has left that program ó as well as other programs, several times now.