California voters decided this week to roll back criminal justice reform, ousting progressive prosecutors in Los Angeles and Alameda counties and effectively reversing decisions they made in 2020 and 2022. It seems so.
Voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 36, which treats some misdemeanor thefts and drug possession as felonies and increases jail and prison sentences. Voters in Los Angeles County rejected a second term for the district. Atty. President George Gascón has reversed some of the incumbent’s reforms and selected former federal prosecutor Nathan Hockman, who has promised to prosecute defendants to the fullest extent of the law. And in Alameda County, early reinstatement supported the District’s recall. Atty. Pamela Price is a civil rights attorney elected in 2022 on a promise to reduce incarceration, expand restorative justice programs, and prosecute police misconduct.
Newspaper headlines and pundits will no doubt proclaim this to be the end of the era of criminal justice reform. But that’s too hasty. While the approval of Proposition 36 and the loss of two reform-minded district attorneys are setbacks, the broader picture suggests public opinion still supports a more equitable approach to criminal justice and rehabilitation opportunities. Ru.
In fact, proponents of Prop. 36, including the mayors of San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego, describe it as a “group treatment” measure to address “chronic homelessness, addiction, and hopelessness.” The initiative would create a mandatory treatment felony for third-degree possession, meaning defendants would have to complete court-supervised drug treatment or be sentenced to years in prison or prison. It will be. The language was designed to appeal to voters who did not want a return to the lock-’em-up era of the 1990s, which led to mass incarceration.
The problem is that Proposition 36 doesn’t provide a cure. There is no funding for substance abuse treatment, and 22 counties in California do not offer residential addiction treatment. And because Proposition 36 increases penalties for certain crimes, it will put more people in jails and prisons, costing California hundreds of millions of dollars more each year. This could and should be spent on crime prevention and rehabilitation programs, including substance abuse treatment.
Both Gascón and Price were elected in the wake of the George Floyd protests, when people called for systemic changes to the criminal justice system. They sought to recalibrate the prosecutor’s office’s use of prosecutorial power by refusing to prosecute young people as adults and refraining from seeking maximum sentences in all cases.
But both met with relentless opposition from law enforcement and traditionally tough-on-crime prosecutors, and were unfairly blamed for the rise in crime. However, both of them also made mistakes as administrators and politicians. That may be why they were ousted, even though progressive prosecutors in Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties were recently reelected.
While Mr. Hochman promised to reverse Mr. Gascón’s “social experiment,” he pitched himself as a prosecutor who would do a more responsible and effective job of implementing reform policies that voters supported. Now, let’s see if he keeps that promise.
Despite the underlying support for a fairer and more humane criminal justice system, it would be irresponsible to ignore the message voters sent this election that Californians are concerned about public safety. They are frustrated by the sense of disorder seen in brazen snatch robberies and stores locking up everyday items due to retail theft. Property crime across the state is down compared to previous decades, but increased in some of the state’s most populous counties, including Los Angeles and Alameda, in 2023, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Violent crime across the state increased slightly last year, and while it’s still higher than before the coronavirus pandemic, it’s still significantly lower than it was in the 1980s and ’90s.
Public officials need to do more to understand why their constituents feel unsafe. They respond with appropriate practical solutions, including early intervention to provide treatment, housing, and services to protect low-level offenders from facing more serious charges and prison sentences. Should.
In the absence of such leadership, special interests will intervene with measures like Proposition 36 that rely on harsh penalties and mass incarceration. California has already done that and paid the price in billions of dollars spent on families torn apart by prisons and long sentences. Let’s not make the same mistake again.
