This article was originally published in the San Diego Union Tribune
The coming landslide win for Proposition 36 will be a triumph for truth over spin. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has long supported criminal justice reform. But in real time, we saw the obvious flaws of Proposition 47 — the November 2014 measure that Proposition 36 is meant to fix. It changed many “nonviolent” felonies into misdemeanors in a ham-handed way that incentivized certain crimes.
Eleven months later, The Washington Post dispatched a reporter to San Diego who wrote an unforgettable account showing the incredulity of law enforcement over the new status quo: “instead of arresting criminals and removing them from the streets, their officers have been dealing with the same offenders again and again. Caught in possession of drugs? That usually means a misdemeanor citation under Prop 47, or essentially a ticket. Caught stealing something worth less than $950? That means a ticket, too. Caught using some of that $950 to buy more drugs? Another citation.”
Nothing has changed since then — unless you count the emergence of a cottage industry determined to depict Proposition 47 as good no matter what. So store clerks say they’ve stopped reporting thefts because there’s no point? It’s a blip. So store owners are spending heavily to lock up more goods than ever, including detergent? There’s no proof that’s necessary — the corporations in charge have an agenda.
But in recent months, this spin has hit comic lows. In 2015, the Legislature passed a law that sharply narrowed the definition of recidivism — the term for a past convict committing a new offense. Subsequently, without any other changes, the number of recidivists plunged.
So who or what gets the credit for this? Incredibly, some activists say it is actually a result of Proposition 47.
In opposing Proposition 36 — which limits the incentives to commit crime that are the worst elements of Proposition 47 — who repeated this lazy, manipulative fiction? The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board.