Former Santa Monica Actress Fights Injustice

By Gene Williams
Staff Writer

January 20 -- Leslie Neale is a Santa Monica mom who’s got it all: good looks, a successful career, a great family and a comfortable craftsman home in Ocean Park.

So what’s this photogenic blonde-haired blue-eyed woman doing spending so much time with convicted felons?

After years of popping up in such T.V. shows as “Seinfield” and movies that include “Clean and Sober” and “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,” Neale turned her back on acting to take on a new role.

She’s now an activist out to reform the criminal justice system, and you’re more likely to find her in a jail than at a Hollywood party. Neal now works behind the camera, making documentary films inside some of the toughest correctional institutions in the country.

“I’m very interested in helping people understand what really happens in our justice system, because I was shocked.” Neale says.

Her latest film, “Juvies” – which aired recently on HBO’s Cinemax – is a strong indictment of juvenile justice in America.

Neale went to Eastlake Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles and randomly selected twelve kids charged with serious crimes – offenses from carjacking to murder – for which these children could be tried as adults.

Many of them came from families where they were sexually or physically abused. Some still liked to sleep with stuffed toy animals. All were sent to the adult criminal justice system.

Neale will tell you that it’s easier to lock these kids up for the majority of their lives than it is to photograph them. She had to cut through mountains of legal and bureaucratic red tape during the five years it took to make the film.

In the past, the maximum penalty for minors in California was time in a juvenile facility until the age of 25. But recent get-tough-on-crime legislation – like enhancement laws that lengthen sentences for gun and gang-related crimes, and ballot initiatives like Proposition 21 that make it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults – has resulted in thousands of kids receiving long adult prison terms.

“Juvies” says that each year in the U.S. 200,000 juvenile offenders are sent to the adult criminal justice system.

Featured in the film is Michael Duc Ta, a soft-spoken friendly kid from a Chinese/Vietnamese immigrant family.

One day Duc was driving with two friends when they came across some boys with whom they had earlier argued. Duc’s friends fired shots from his car.

“It all happened so fast,” Duc says in the film. “It was like a blur.” Fortunately, the bullets missed.

Although Duc was only 16 and had no prior arrests, he received the maximum sentence -- 35 years to life in an adult correctional facility. Duc would not be eligible for parole until 2031.

“People think that his sentence is an aberration. It’s not,” Neale says. “The people who are on the frontlines of this kind of work know hundreds of these cases.”

Because of “Juvies,” hundreds of letters were written on Duc’s behalf and thousands signed his petition. Neale says her film “probably shamed the people who were involved in his case” and “finally the DA and the judge did the right thing.”

Duc’s sentence was reduced. But Neale feels this is only a partial victory.

“Yeah it’s a great thing we helped Duc Ta. We got 25 years knocked of his sentence,” Neale says. “But the point is these laws have to change for the many, many kids who are locked up on similar charges.”

That’s why two years ago, Neale teamed up with State Senator Sheila Kuehl who sponsored two bills. The idea was to make it harder to try kids as adults and encourage judges to reduce sentences for kids who do clean time.

One of these bills died in the legislature. The other was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

Neale says our current laws cast a large net that traps thousands of kids who are innocent or only minimally involved in a crime – kids who were simply “in the car” or “at the party” when it happened.

And, she adds, getting tough on crime has gotten tough on taxpayers. California’s prison population has ballooned more than 800 percent in the past 20 years, according to the Los Angeles Times, with one of the highest recidivism rates in the country.

More than 167,000 Californians are now behind bars, according to the State Department of Corrections website. Once released, most are likely to be re-arrested within six months. Each prisoner costs the State $71,700 per year.

Neale advocates for “more cost-effective programs….like education, like rehabilitation, like jobs. Real job training. That’s what keeps people out of prison,” she says.

Neale pauses. Then she recalls how her commitment to justice reform began. It was 13 years ago, she says, and she was eight months pregnant.

“My husband was on a book tour and I was traveling with him,” she says. “And he said, ‘You know, we got to stop off at the Dixon Correctional Institute because I bought the drums for this prison program.’”

Neale’s husband is Doors drummer John Densmore, an active supporter of Amnesty International and the producer of Neale’s documentaries.

“So I ended up spending the day with 50 men at a maximum security prison in a drum circle,” Neale recalls. “And that moment changed my life.

“The men were sharing with such honesty, such integrity, that I had never experienced that level of human communication honesty in the outside world.”

Shortly after the experience, she says, she was “walking down the French Quarter in New Orleans thinking, ‘Ah, this is who I am and not this, you know, guest-star actress, you know, this television star.’ Because the best part of what I do is I get to walk in worlds that I’d never been invited to before.”

Knowing that the inmate rehabilitation program she had witnessed – Project Return – would make a good documentary film, Neale approached several production companies. But none seemed too interested in the idea.

That’s when Densmore told her, “You do it,” she says, and eventually she began work on her first film, “Road to Recovery.”

Last year, Neale took “Juvies” on the road, traveling with her film to schools in cities across the country. Now she’s exploring several possibilities for her next project.

And while she’s not exactly sure what it will be, she says, it’s a sure bet it will have to do with justice reform.

“I just feel lucky that I’m able to make friends with people that my class, or my race, or the part of town I live in would keep me from,” Neale says.

“If we don’t reach out to other communities, to me, that’s another form of prison.”

“Juvies” is narrated by Mark Wahlberg and Mos Def.

For more information or to buy a copy of the film go to www.juvies.net

This is the first in a series of monthly profiles of Santa Monicans who are making a difference.