Editorial: Prop. 47 — A failure to learn history’s lesson
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Dec. 22, 2016, Sacramento Bee.
In their laudable effort to reverse mass incarceration, California policymakers have been too slow to provide felons with necessary care and treatment upon their release.
That’s among the conclusions to be gleaned from an important reporting project by newspapers in Palm Springs, Ventura, Salinas and Redding analyzing Proposition 47, the 2014 initiative that cut penalties for drug possession and property theft, and reduced many crimes to misdemeanors.
“Thousands of addicts and mentally ill people have traded a life behind bars for a churning cycle of homelessness, substance abuse and petty crime,” says the report by the Desert Sun of Palm Springs, Ventura County Star, Redding Record Searchlight and Salinas Californian.
