Safety discussed after ‘State of the State’
Proposed ballot measure gets Santa Clarita politicians talking about problems within criminal justice system
As district attorney and law enforcement groups look to gather 600,000 signatures by April 30 in order to reform Propositions 47 and 57, Santa Clarita politicians are indirectly starting to rally behind the proposed ballot measure.
The authors of the Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act of 2018 aim to “fix” issues created by Proposition 47, which reduced certain non-violent felonies to misdemeanors after it was approved by voters in 2014.
Proposition 57, approved two years later, hastened the release of some nonviolent offenders from prisons. Among the crimes that would be reclassified as violent felonies in the new ballot measure are domestic violence, hate crimes and child abduction.
Michele Hanisee, president of the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys and one of the main backers of the proposed ballot measure, previously told The Signal the measure would create accountability for repeat theft offenses and help restore DNA collections.
During his response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s “State of the State” address, Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale,
who represents the northern edges of the Santa Clarita Valley, indirectly referred to the proposed ballot measure’s requirement to collect DNA evidence as a crime-fighting tool.
“I am glad that Gov. Brown discussed public safety, which is a concern across the state as crime rates have increased,” he said. “We should start by taking a commonsense step to restore the use of DNA evidence to solve serious crimes. Proposition 47 substantially limited how law enforcement can collect DNA evidence, which has led
to a huge decline in the state’s DNA database. We should act now to protect victims by fixing this problem.”
Sen. Scott Wilk, RSanta Clarita, said in his response to Brown’s “State of the State” address that the governor’s legislative actions led to higher crime.
“Today, Gov. Brown’s ‘State of the State’ glossed over issues impacting life for every day Californians; ironically many of the hardships our citizens face are a direct result of policies created under his leadership,” he said. “Since passage of his get out of jail free policies, violent crime and property crime have skyrocketed while police are forced to play
‘catch-and-release’ with criminals who would previously have been behind bars.”
Santa Clarita City Councilman Cameron Smyth previously told The Signal he would personally back the initiative, but said it was too early in the process for the city to have a formal position.
The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California issued a study on recidivism rates in December that said 71.9 percent of offenders on post-release community supervision were rearrested and nearly 57 percent of offenders were convicted. Both statistics are about 2.5 percent higher than they were before prison realignment went into effect in 2011.