Effectiveness of state crime laws fuels debate

Another round of the debate over crime and punishment is opening in California, where lawmakers and voters in recent years have added some elements of leniency to a justice system that has long been one of the nation’s most punitive.

A new study and a proposed ballot measure gave conflicting grades this week to the wave of changes in state law. Those changes included the 2011 “realignment” that resentenced low-level felons to county jail instead of state prison and ballot measures that shortened some “three strikes” sentences for repeat felons in 2012, reclassified some theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors in 2014, and gave some long-serving prisoners a chance for early parole in 2016.

A report released Monday by Californians for Safety and Justice, which generally supports the recent actions, found little change in statewide crime rates from 2010 to 2016 — a drop of about 3 percent in property crimes, compared to population, and an increase of less than 1 percent in violent crimes.

There were wide variations between counties, said the report, which relied on state data — San Francisco had a 35.1 percent increase in property crimes over the six-year period, compared to decreases of 9.5 percent in Alameda County, 12.7 percent in Contra Costa County, 8.3 percent in San Mateo County and 8.2 percent in Marin County.

But overall, the sponsoring group said, the figures refute

predictions by prosecutors and police groups that shorter sentences would trigger an avalanche of crimes.

“We’re still living in an era of historic lows as it relates to crime,” said the group’s executive director, Lenore Anderson. “The public has said (to) stop wasting billions of dollars on ineffective prisons.”

A different perspective came from a coalition of law enforcement and victims’ advocates calling itself the California Public Safety Partnership.

“We’re reforming the unintended consequences of reforms to better protect the public,” Assemblyman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove (Sacramento County), said Monday as the coalition filed papers to begin signature-gathering for a 2018 initiative that would roll back some of the new laws.

One provision would narrow part of Proposition 57, the 2016 initiative sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown that allowed inmates to go before the parole board and seek release after completing the sentence for the crime they committed, without serving more time for previous convictions. They would have to persuade the board that they posed no danger if released, and would not be eligible for parole if their crime was defined as violent.

But prosecutors contend Prop. 57’s definition of violent crimes was far too limited. The ballot measure would add 15 additional crimes, including assault on a law enforcement officer, felony domestic violence and rape of an unconscious person, and require those prisoners to serve their full sentences.

Other provisions would overturn parts of Prop. 47, the 2014 initiative that shortened sentences

“We’re still living in an era of historic lows as it relates to crime.” Lenore Anderson, Californians for Safety and Justice

by reducing a number of felonies to misdemeanors punished by short jail terms.

Prop. 47 raised the threshold for felony theft from $450 to $950, making theft of anything worth less than that amount a misdemeanor. The proposed ballot measure would allow felony prosecution for a third theft of property worth $250 or more.

The measure would also allow police to collect DNA from anyone convicted of one of the crimes reclassified as a misdemeanor under Prop. 47. Current law authorizes collection of genetic material only from convicted felons, a limitation that, according to prosecutors, leaves gaps in the state’s DNA database.