January 13, 2017
A report released this week by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, finds that in the first full year after the passage of Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, felony drug arrests fell by over 92,000 while misdemeanor drug arrests increased by only 70,000. Taken together, these shifts produced a 10 percent decline in total drug arrests between 2014 and 2015 statewide—that’s 22,000 fewer Californians who had their lives devastated by the life altering impacts of criminal justice involvement.
Drug offense arrests in California, 2005-2015
Source: DOJ, 2016. Note: From 2010 to 2011, misdemeanor drug arrests declined sharply as a result of Senate Bill (SB) 1449, which took effect on January 1, 2011 and reduced personal possession of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction (SB 1449, 2010).
Passed by Californian voters in 2014, Prop. 47 reduced certain offenses from felonies to misdemeanors and earmarked the savings from reduced incarceration costs for direct services such as, substance use treatment, housing, victim services, and K-12 programs. The passage of Prop. 47 was a significant step toward reforming the criminalization of drug use by reclassifying three drug possession offenses (possession of a narcotic, concentrated cannabis, or a non-narcotic) to misdemeanors, removing some of the harshest impacts and barriers resulting from a felony conviction.
Previously, the discretion to prosecute drug possession offenses as felonies instead of misdemeanors was held by prosecutors. This left the door open for uneven and harsher sentencing, usually targeting people of color. The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement who more heavily enforce drug laws in communities of color. Although rates of drug use are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites. The passage of Prop 47 eliminated prosecutorial discretion for drug offenses, and the prevalence of “justice-by-geography.”
Critics of the policy, claim that it limits police authority and constrains the effectiveness of drug control, a contention that has led some law enforcement agencies to deemphasize the enforcement of Prop 47-related offenses. But the decline in arrests has freed up millions of dollars that would have been spent on policing, prosecution and incarceration. Reducing these criminal justice costs has created an opportunity to shift these savings from the criminal justice system into enhancing treatment options and availability within the health care domain. The question remains: Will state and local governments actually undertake the hard work on reinvesting these dollars in health and community based services that have been proven to be the most effective deterrents of recidivism.
Californians have led the country in criminal justice reform efforts in recent years and have been demanding prioritizing treatment over punishment since 2000 with the passage of the first Proposition 36. We know that the punitive criminalization of drug use has only led to the incarceration of generations of our communities and has failed to increase safety or reduce the availability of drugs within our communities. This week, Gov. Jerry Brown stated that California is projected to run a $1.6-billion deficit by next summer, and while his Department of Finance only allocated $69 million in Prop. 47 savings for direct services he increased the corrections budget by over $1 billion dollars.
Decades and millions of arrests later, have proven we cannot arrest our way out of the personal and community harms of problematic substance use. We are in a critical moment in history, and we must hold our legislatures accountable to our priorities. We cannot allow for our legislatures to continue prioritizing the needs of the law enforcement industry and prison industrial complex over the needs of our communities.
Eunisses Hernandez is a California policy associate for the Drug Policy Alliance.