Pubdate: Mon, 02 Nov 2015
Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Press Democrat
Contact:  http://www.pressdemocrat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348
Author: Robert Greene
Note: Robert Greene Is an Editorial Writer for the Los Angeles Times.

WERE CALIFORNIA VOTERS DUPED BY PROP. 47?

Police and prosecutors have lately attempted to link increases in 
crime to last year's Proposition 47. Based on their overwrought 
statements, it would be understandable for Californians to start 
wondering whether they had been duped into completely decriminalizing 
drug possession and petty theft. They could be forgiven for asking 
whether it's really the case that their law enforcement officers can 
no longer arrest thieves for stealing guns or breaking into cars, or 
have no option but to write tickets while watching all manner of 
mayhem unfold before them. They might hear that addicts have lost any 
incentive to choose drug treatment or to show up for court hearings.

None of those things are true, although officials in many communities 
throughout California appear to sincerely, although mistakenly, 
believe them. As is the case with all large bureaucracies, it is 
difficult for courts and for city and county agencies - police 
departments, sheriff's departments, district attorneys, probation 
officers, county supervisors - to understand and constructively 
respond to changed circumstances. And Proposition 47 no doubt brought 
change, by converting six felonies to misdemeanors and allowing many 
people serving sentences for those crimes, and those who served their 
time long ago, to be resentenced and have their rap sheets adjusted.

We'd probably be better off if the various links in the public safety 
chain had opted to temporarily stick with their old practices 
following last November's vote: if police kept arresting people for 
crimes reclassified as misdemeanors, and transporting suspects to 
jail and to court for arraignment, for example; and if prosecutors 
considered the circumstances (Is this the defendant's first arrest 
for drug possession? The eighth?) and occasionally opted to seek the 
full sentence (up to a year behind bars); and if courts offered 
diversion or rehabilitation as an alternative - all of which not only 
remain available, despite assertions to the contrary, but absolutely 
must be used, selectively, if Proposition 47 is to work properly. 
They could have spent the last year examining their options and 
carefully and deliberately adjusting their practices so as to bring 
the maximum amount of public safety to the communities they patrol.

Instead, arrests for drug possession and other former felonies this 
year have plunged, leaving many offenders on the street unsupervised 
to commit petty crimes or worse. The voters, many police explain, 
have told us that they want us to turn our attention to other crimes, 
so that's what we're doing.

But there's at least some element of petulance in that position. It's 
as if police are saying to California voters: "Fine. You don't think 
we should treat drug crimes and petty thefts seriously? Then we 
won't. See how you like it."

Crime in Los Angeles and some other communities throughout the state 
has increased this year after many years of decline. But is that 
because of Proposition 47? Other American cities, where Proposition 
47 has no effect, have seen similar increases.

If the ballot measure is connected to rising crime, that's probably 
because public officials have been too slow to recognize the options 
that the measure gives them. And it's likely that their decisions - a 
deputy's decision not to arrest, for example, or the sheriff's not to 
make room in the jail for a recidivist offender pending trial, or 
county supervisors' not to use any of the hundreds of millions of 
dollars currently available for non-jail alternatives - are based on 
suppositions about how the other links in the public safety chain will react.

A misdemeanor arrest would be futile, deputies say, because the watch 
commander would just release the suspect at the station, or the judge 
would just release him at court because the sheriff has no room in 
the jail - except that with arrests down, sheriffs suddenly have far 
more room, and every link in that chain has more opportunities than 
ever before to break the cycle of recidivism.

The gist of the reaction against Proposition 47 is that we as a 
society simply have no choice but to make possession of drugs and 
petty theft into felonies punishable by more than a year in prison if 
we want to control more serious crime. Similar warnings were issued 
about the consequences of modifying the three-strikes law, yet 
recidivism among strikers released from prison after voters adopted 
Proposition 36 is astonishingly low. And similar arguments were made 
against redirecting some felons from state prison and state parole to 
county jail and county probation, yet crime rates after realignment 
continued to fall.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom