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CA Retreat on Criminal Reform More Nuanced Than Radical

Despite major losses in last week's election, advocates on both sides of California criminal justice policy warn against seeing the election as a clear repudiation of the state's reforms entirely, KQED reports. Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, who helped write Proposition 36, one of the major wins for critics of California's latest reforms, said the results signal a move back toward moderation, but not a reversion to the state's tough-on-crime era in the 1990s. “I think it’s just a ratification that Californians are ready for something more moderate than the progressive reforms that we’ve seen in the last few years,” said Reisig said. “It was too much too fast, and it resulted in a lot of negative consequences that people could see with their own eyes.”


Among the most high-profile ballot box outcomes: A resounding win for Proposition 36, which rolled back some criminal justice reforms embraced by voters just a decade ago, and the ousting of progressive prosecutors in two of the state’s largest counties, Los Angeles and Alameda. Los Angeles DA George Gascón was handily defeated in his reelection bid, while Alameda County DA Pamela Price was voted out in a recall just two years into her term. Proposition 36 increased criminal penalties for repeat thieves and drug users by rolling back portions of an earlier ballot measure, Proposition 47. Four years ago, prosecutors and retailers tried unsuccessfully to pass a more draconian rollback of Proposition 47 that focused solely on incarceration. This time, they took a different tack, leaning into the need for more treatment, even though Proposition 36 provides no new funding for those types of programs. Lenore Anderson, who wrote Proposition 47 and has been a leading national voice for criminal justice reform as president of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, said it’s striking that Proposition 36 was not framed to voters as a return to the harsh incarceration policies of the 1990s. “The proponents of the campaign talked about mass treatment. They talked about a balanced approach to public safety,” she said. “And in that regard, I don’t think you can walk away from looking at how the proponents ran that campaign and say, this was a referendum on criminal justice reform. It just wasn’t.”



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