New Report: California’s Prop 47 Exacerbated Crime and Drug Abuse 

NEW YORK, NY— Before Californians enter the voting booth, they have time to assess whether they approve of the state's criminal justice approach. Ten years ago, with the passage of Proposition 47, California voters chose to reduce the criminal justice consequences for grand theft, larceny, personal drug use, forgery, and two types of check fraud by prohibiting prosecutors to charge most of these as felonies. In a new Manhattan Institute report, fellow and director of policing and public safety, Hannah Meyers, presents a data-driven analysis of how these reclassifications affected criminal and prosecutorial behavior. 

Prop 47 aimed to inspire offenders to move away from criminality and toward voluntary treatment programs for substance abuse, motivated in part by the need to alleviate overcrowding in prisons. Representative data from Riverside, one of California’s largest counties, reveals it did the contrary. Since the passage of Prop 47, crimes including serious offenses often related to theft and drugs increased. More specifically, there was an increase in re-offending, detention times, failures to appear in court, warrants issued on offenders, and case dismissals in conjunction with plea deals. As a result, fewer defendants participated in in-custody drug treatment programs and other mandatory, supervised services because there was no longer any incentive to do so. 

Prop 47 has damaged public safety and public health in California. It is now common for a prosecutor to see his defendant commit four or more new cases while the first is ongoing. The average case length has increased to nearly 300 days, compared to 160 days before Prop 47. California was not alone in passing legislation in recent years that aimed at lessening consequences for low-level offending. Understanding the dynamics behind these negative outcomes for well-intentioned reforms will help all American jurisdictions pass laws that help rather than harm. 

Click here to view the full report.