Retired San Diego police chief: Prop 47 “went too far” to coddle criminals without requiring accountability
James Mahoney: “Stop Thief”. Image in Public Domain
In the San Diego Tribune, past police chief Shelley Zimmerman critiques Prop 47, which Californians approved in 2014 to reclassify property thefts under $950 in value from felonies to misdemeanors. Since then, cities like SJ have observed higher property crime rates, leaving many like Zimmerman (and SJ's mayor Mahan) to question Prop 47's premise: that downgrading consequences of lawbreaking will make people do less of it.
Californians are zeroing in on Proposition 47 — a ballot measure passed in 2014 that significantly reduced penalties for drug crimes and theft. Last month’s UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found nearly two-thirds of voters are ready to make changes to it.
The fact that such a majority of the public is fed up in a state as progressive as California says something about how bad things have gotten. Unfortunately, our current situation was predictable.
I opposed Proposition 47 from the beginning because it was based on a faulty premise. The measure was rooted in the same approach to policing that has driven many of California’s criminal justice changes in recent years. The rationale behind policies like Proposition 47 was to reduce the consequences of crimes with the hope that offenders will instead choose to seek treatment and rehabilitation services. Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin has said participation in California’s drug court program — which offers a path to sobriety to avoid jail time — has fallen as much as 50 percent since 2014.
Now that eight years have passed since Proposition 47 was enacted, Californians are unhappy with the results. While Proposition 47 cannot be entirely blamed for the recent rise in crime, we are also seeing the law’s harmful impacts amplified by a confluence of bad policies....
I have spent three decades in law enforcement, but that doesn’t make me an opponent of criminal justice reforms. In the past, we have relied too heavily on incarceration, and we should always be looking for ways to limit its use when appropriate without jeopardizing public safety. However, Proposition 47 went too far by offering leniency without requiring accountability in return from the offenders — especially for those who victimize others over and over again.
This article originally appeared in the San Diego Tribune. Read the whole thing here.
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