Not Taking Crime Seriously - California’s Prop 47 Exacerbated Crime and Drug Abuse

This paper presents a data-based argument on how Prop 47 shifted dynamics in both offender behavior and prosecutorial decision-making that damaged public safety and public health. - Hannah E. Meyers 

Executive Summary

• In November 2014, California voters approved a criminal justice reform measure, Proposition 47 (“Prop 47”), with almost 60% support.[1] 
• Ten years later, California voters are now considering rolling back some of its soft-on-crime policies. Prop 47 identified six “petty” crimes—grand theft, larceny, personal drug use, forgery, and two types of check fraud—and reclassified them. 
• It downgraded these crimes, including thefts with property values under $950 and illegal drug possession for personal use, from felonies to misdemeanors.

This paper presents a data-based argument on how Prop 47 shifted dynamics in both offender behavior and prosecutorial decision-making that damaged public safety and public health. 

Representative data from Riverside, one of California’s largest counties, suggest that Prop 47 

• increased re-offending, 
• including serious felony re-offending, 
• detention times, 
• failures to appear in court, 
• warrants issued on offenders, 
• case dismissals in conjunction with plea deals, and the persistence levels of drug and theft offenders.
• Additional data collected from both Riverside and San Bernardino law-enforcement agencies show a significant drop in sentencing and in arrests, due partly to the diminished incentive for businesses to promptly report thefts...