Woodson is the legal director of Pillars of the Community, a Southeast San Diego-based nonprofit, and lives in San Diego.
Law enforcement and proponents seeking to reform Proposition 47 are using deceptive tactics to lie to voters in an effort to roll California back to a disastrous “tough on crime” approach — an approach that has been proven to be a dismal failure.
Proponents seeking to reform Proposition 47 have been fear-mongering voters by saturating the news with story after story of spikes in crime rates. The culprit, they say? Proposition 47 releasing criminals into our communities by the masses. The narrative being used to trick California voters into approving reforms to Proposition 47 is dishonest at best and dangerously counterproductive at worst — not to mention a fiscally irresponsible use of taxpayers’ dollars and completely against research-based evidence on true crime prevention: investments into our communities.
In 2014, California overwhelmingly voted to increase the threshold of certain low-level, nonviolent property and drug possession crimes from $400 to $950, effectively reducing these crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The ballot proposal was intended to alleviate the devastating effects of a felony record for low-level offenses, removing barriers to help people land jobs and housing and get generally back on their feet. Voters made it clear that the failed status quo — a statewide re-arrest rate of over 75 percent, deaths caused by medical neglect in overcrowded prisons and mass incarceration so inhumane that the federal government nearly stepped in to take over the state’s prison system — was no longer acceptable.
So let’s tell the truth about Proposition 47.
The truth is: Proposition 47 does not contribute to homelessness.
Critics of Proposition 47 claim that it has contributed to California’s drastic increase in rates of homelessness — up 50 percent versus only 11 percent for the rest of the country. Homelessness in California is up for many reasons, but not because of Proposition 47. California is one of the most expensive states to live in, with skyrocketing costs of living and stagnant wages. These are the root causes of homelessness that have made California home to 28 percent of the country’s homeless population. Countless studies have shown that criminalization doesn’t work to end homelessness, and instead, it actually perpetuates poverty and entrenches people into chronic homelessness.
The truth is: Crime is down and so is shoplifting.
Despite sensationalism on the news displaying increases in crime rates and elaborate retail theft rings, research shows that California is actually experiencing historic lows in crime rates and shoplifting rates are 7 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels and 15 percent lower than before Proposition 47 was ed in 2014. The crimes covered under Proposition 47 only include low-level, nonviolent drug possession and theft crimes under $950. To put this into context, even the latest versions of the iPhones cost more than $950. So the idea that Proposition 47 has allowed the release of masses of violent criminals to roam our streets is simply absurd. Violent crimes, or even organized retail theft crimes for that matter, are not even impacted by Proposition 47. Additionally, individuals who do commit crimes covered under Proposition 47 are still subject to being charged and convicted for those crimes. However, because of Proposition 47, we are no longer locking people away in prison for a few years for stealing an iPhone’s worth of items from Target. Research also shows that the threat of getting caught, and not the length of a sentence, is what actually deters crime.
There have been two rigorous studies on the impact of Proposition 47 on crime rates. Both found that Proposition 47 did not increase crime rates and one found no impact on property crime. In fact, research conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that Proposition 47 reduced recidivism and reduced racial disparities.
The truth is: Proposition 47 works.
California voters made a bold statement with the age of Proposition 47 — leave the disastrous and failed approaches of mass incarceration behind and invest in true public safety approaches backed by science, research and data. Since the age of Proposition 47, crimes in the state have generally declined. State crime recidivism has been reduced, and housing and employment stability have increased. The reduction in state prison incarceration has saved the state over $800 million thus far with research estimating a savings of $100 million annually in perpetuity. This money has been invested back into our community to fund programs that actually prevent crime such as programs that housing, mental health, substance abuse and violence interruption, to name a few. The truth is Proposition 47 works because it prioritizes the prevention of crime — rather than a harmful, strictly punitive approach — to demonstrate true public safety in our communities.
