PD Editorial: California succeeds by getting smart on crime

The sky-is-falling crowd who warned that Proposition 47's easing up on criminal incarceration would be a disaster for California was wrong.

In 2014, voters took an important step toward lowering the state's incarceration rate by approving Proposition 47. Its passage meant that many nonviolent offenses previously considered felonies - property crimes valued at $950 or less, simple drug possession, shoplifting, forgery and others - would be treated as misdemeanors.

It was a smart move in a state with a $9 billion corrections budget and packed prisons. Still, it was opposed by many law enforcement officials who warned that it would give a “get out of jail free” card to criminals and lead to increased crime and recidivism.

A yearlong study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California suggests that Proposition 47 might have led to an increase in some property crimes - particularly car theft - but also is responsible for a 3.1 percent decrease in recidivism. There is no evidence that the measure played any part in a spike in violent crime, which the study attributed to improved crime reporting and the FBI's expanded definition of sex crimes.

An increase in property crimes is not, it goes without saying, an ideal outcome. But even with the jump - about a 9 percent increase in larcenies - property crimes are still near historic lows.

With Proposition 47, voters responded to decades of tough-on-crime politics that resulted in a sevenfold increase in the state's prison population between 1980 and 2006. This came with an enormous expense - both in the money required to house inmates and the lost potential of those incarcerated for nonviolent crimes.

After the measure passed, the state arrest rate dropped to its lowest level in history, according to the Public Policy Institute study. Jail bookings declined by about 8 percent in the first year, researchers found.

As the study noted, this is especially important because being booked into custody, even for a short time, can lead to serious problems for an individual when it comes to caring for a child or maintaining employment.

Meanwhile, the shorter sentences resulting from Proposition 47 led to tens of millions of dollars in savings. Legislation passed in 2014 required that 65 percent of those savings go to mental health, treatment for substance-use disorders and other programs to help try to break the cycle of crime and punishment.

Much of the crime that happens in California is inextricably linked to illicit drugs. Locking up low-level offenders who suffer from a substance-use disorder does nothing to deal with the underlying issues and practically guarantees a high rate of recidivism.

For decades, California wasn't smart about how it tried to reduce crime. The experience of the past several decades proves that locking people up by the tens of thousands is an expensive failure.

Yes, violent criminals need to be taken off the streets. For less serious offenses, there are other, better approaches that cost less, lead to long-term reductions in crime and, perhaps most important, salvage irreplaceable human capital in the state.

We hope California will reap the benefits of Proposition 47 for years to come.

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