Ballot approval alleviates California prison overcrowding


In 2011, the United States Supreme Court investigated the health and safety standards of the California prison system and determined that overcrowding made inmates’ stays comparable to cruel and unusual punishment. They then ordered a reduction of California prisoners by 110,000, and even that still leaves the California prison population to 137 percent capacity.

Proposition 47 was created to keep non-violent offenders out of prison for extended periods of time to decrease overcrowding. The proposition has allowed jailers to release offenders that pose no real threat to society and reduce otherwise lengthy sentences, a monumental step in social justice.

If an inmate is jailed for a felony that Proposition 47 would now call a misdemeanor, that inmate is eligible for resentencing. They may petition to have a new hearing to determine whether their release is appropriate. This process lessens the financial burden on California prisons.

There are thousands of inmates still eligible for new sentences; since 1990, California has jailed more than 423,000 inmates as felons whose sentences could be misdemeanors.

With more financial burdens lifted, the prison system is free to use money that would have been used to jail non-violent offenders to fund drug rehabilitation, mental health treatment and truancy. These programs are set to begin in 2016.

Rehabilitation is a necessary step, seeing as in 2012, one-year recidivism rates for California inmates was 47 percent. California recently put $2 billion into the prison system that was meant for rehabilitation programs, but most of it went to sustaining county jails that could not survive on their budgets due to overcrowding.

Lessening inmate numbers, however, isn’t just merely an economic issue. Proposition 47 has allowed officers to keep criminals behind bars. In the past, prison officials were often forced to release inmates sooner than they otherwise would due to overcrowding. The decreased number of prisoners has allowed jailers to stick to the time assigned each prisoner and keep inmates in prison for as long as needed to protect the public.

The most important task the proposition is attempting to accomplish, however, is one much more difficult to measure. The proposition changes all sorts of former felonies to misdemeanors, including small-scale thievery, forgery and fraud. But arguably the most relevant offense that has been reduced to a misdemeanor is personal use of illegal drugs.

California decriminalized marijuana use in early 2011, and according to most reports, this decriminalization has led to nothing but positive results. A study by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice states this decriminalization “has not resulted in harmful consequences for teenagers, such as increased crime, drug overdose, driving under the influence, or school dropout.” In fact, the study indicates that decriminalization makes risk factors lower for teenagers.

Proposition 47 does not decriminalize all illegal drugs. Moving personal drug use from a felony to a misdemeanor, however, could have a similar effect. Many drug addicts simply do not come forward for fear of a felony charge, and therefore do not get the counseling or treatment they need.

Fixing California prisons is long overdue; it is not simply an economic crisis for the state, but a human rights issue. California can no longer afford to allow overcrowding, and citizens of California desperately need the treatment that funding from Proposition 47 will provide.

Claire Cahoon is a sophomore majoring in English. “Point/Counterpoint” runs Tuesdays.

1 reply
  1. Roxy
    Roxy says:

    “Proposition 47 was created to keep non-violent offenders out of prison for extended periods of time to decrease overcrowding.”

    You were almost right, if you would have left off “to decrease overcrowding.” People in the state of California were disgusted with the idea of such severe sentences foisted on petty drug offenders; their motivation was not the issue of relieving overcrowding. Secondarily, they were disgusted with the idea of the taxes being spent to support these offenders in prison for unnecessarily long amounts of time. Your statement implies that if we could afford to build a hundred more prisons, we would be happy to lock up everybody and their brother.

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