California voters appear ready to further scale back the state’s extensive prison system 20 years after they passed the controversial three strikes law, which sentences third-time felons to 25 years to life.
Proposition 47, also known as the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” would downgrade six felony crimes: drug possession, grand theft, shoplifting, check forgery, receiving stolen property and writing bad checks – as long as the stolen items or bad checks total less than $950.
A recent poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found 62 percent of voters supported the measure, with only 25 percent opposed.
About 40,000 offenders each year are convicted of crimes addressed in the measure, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office. Classifying these offenses as misdemeanors would result in shorter jail sentences or probation, potentially releasing thousands of inmates and freeing up to 30,000 prison beds, the policy group said.
The reduction in the prison population would save $400 million to $700 million, according to estimates by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.
The measure requires that the savings be used to support school truancy and dropout prevention, victim services, mental health and drug abuse treatment and other programs designed to keep offenders out of prison.
[For more of this story, written by Shawn Baldwin, go to http://richmondconfidential.or...-california-prisons/]
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