The votes have been cast and counted, and it looks like California is finally sorting out its priorities – that is, as supporters have been chanting for months, schools, not prisons.
With a majority vote, Proposition 47 passed tonight, effectively reducing the penalty for certain nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and rerouting those funds toward mental health and drug treatment programs, K-12 schools and a crime victim compensation fund.
I must say, I’m impressed by us. I’m feeling that silly sense of pride in my home state that comes around every so often when I’m taken aback by how generous we can be, if asked.
Because that’s what Proposition 47 is ultimately about – giving chances. We’re giving chances to people who have committed what are often just crimes of poverty. We’re giving chances to people who want to kick addiction. We’re giving chances to students.
We’re giving chances to people who deserve another one.
And if in that process, we just also happen to save $250 million and redistribute it to more constructive uses like keeping students in school, well, then that’s a huge bonus.
With the passage of this proposition, California gets to work toward the future by allocating resources toward preventing people from committing more crimes, rather than toward punishing them for old ones. Punishment shouldn’t be a matter of locking people away and letting them “do their time.” It should be a matter of ensuring that prisoners don’t find themselves behind bars again after they are released. And currently in California, six out of 10 people leave prison only to come back within three years. In changing our system of punishment, our justice system is now also changing behavior, instead of pressing the pause button on it.
So thank you, California, for sacrificing the grudge of a crime for the very salvageable future of nonviolent criminals. Thank you for realizing that students should be behind desks, and not behind bars, and for realizing that we can affect their paths.
Proposition 47 is no silver bullet. There is always the valid concern of less deterrent to crime, but at least we’ve made a dent to start with in relaxing our state’s guilty habit of over-incarceration, and curbing the school-to-prison pipeline.
And if adjusting our criminal justice system means hundreds of millions are saved for education and treatment programs, then that is not being “soft” on crime. That’s choosing to treat a problem, not criminalize it. That’s choosing to give chances to people who are not hopeless.
I might even call that justice.