State panel urges reduced prison sentences
With crime rates in California at historic lows, the state should take steps to reduce prison sentences — particularly for older inmates, who pose relatively little danger — and limit or ban fines for low-income defendants, a state panel said Tuesday in its annual report to lawmakers.
“Research shows that long prison sentences do not improve public safety and produce significant racial disparities,” said the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code. Although the state’s prison population of 95,000 is its lowest since 1990, the committee said, “high incarceration rates and alarming racial disparities continue to plague our system.”
Among the changes it recommended is a law that would allow anyone who has served at least 15 years in prison to ask a judge for a reduced sentence. “If this recommendation is too ambitious,” the panel said, legislation could allow shortened sentences for 15-year inmates who either are now older than 50 or were younger than 26 when they committed their crime.
Changing the law “to allow people who have served a significant period of time in prison to apply for resentencing directly to a court would create significant cost savings for the state while preserving public safety,” the report said.
Other proposals include:
Expansion of Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, now a pilot program in San Francisco and Los Angeles County that allows police to refer people to community agencies instead of jail after arrests for possession or sale of drugs or prostitution. The program, supported by police agencies, appears to be succeeding, the report said — 12 months after the referrals in San Francisco, felony arrests for participants were about 60% lower than for similarly situated defendants who were released after being jailed, and misdemeanor arrests were nearly 85% lower. The panel said LEAD should be extended to other counties and applied to crimes such as theft and burglary.
Prohibiting a monetary fine as part of a criminal sentence when the defendant’s income is no more than 25% above the federal poverty standard, or is represented by a public defender because he or she cannot afford a private lawyer. In other cases, the committee said, the sentencing judge should still determine a defendant’s ability to pay before imposing a fine.“Ordering people to pay amounts they cannot afford does not improve public safety,” the report said.
The committee was established by state law in 2020 to address prison overcrowding and recommend changes in criminal laws and the justice system. The current six-member panel includes four appointees of Gov. Gavin Newsom and two legislators, Sen. Nancy Skinner, DBerkeley, and Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles.
“Our recommendations aim to improve public safety, optimize law enforcement resources, and reduce unfair and biased criminal law practices,” said the panel’s chairman, Michael Romano, a Stanford Law School lecturer and former director of
the school’s Criminal Defense Clinic.
California imposed some of the nation’s longest prison sentences after its voters in 1994 approved the Three Strikes law, which required a term of 25 years to life for anyone with two serious or violent felony convictions who committed a third felony.
The voters modified Three Strikes in 2012 with Proposition 36, which imposed a 25-to-life sentence only if the third strike was a serious or violent felony. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 after a judge found that overcrowding was causing shoddy prison health care.
Prop. 36 appears to be working, the panel’s report said: Among all inmates released from California prisons in recent years, 42% were convicted of a new crime within three years, while just 27% of those freed under the terms of Prop. 36 had new convictions and less than 2% of those were for violent crimes.
Crime in California, which declined at the start of the pandemic, increased by about 6% in 2022 for both violent offenses and property crimes, the report said.
But the crime rate is still much lower than it was several decades ago, the panel said: 55% below the peak rate for violent crimes recorded in 1992, and 66% less than the highest rate for property crimes, recorded in 1980.
And the rate for 2023 so far “shows promising signs,” the report said: According to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, data from eight populous areas of the state through September showed a 3% decrease in violent crime, and a 16% decline in homicides, compared with the same period in 2022. The rate dropped by about 7% in San Francisco but rose by 22% in Oakland.
Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko