This week, prison justice reform in California appeared to undergo a number of blows.
California handed Proposition 36 — a tough-on-crime measure that imposes harsher sentences on low-level offenses like drug possession — and reform-oriented district attorneys in Los Angeles and Oakland misplaced their races.
Many are asking: Is the motion for prison justice reform in California lifeless? The reply isn’t any.
At Vera Motion, the place I coordinate our California justice work, we’ve carried out public polling to study what Californians need from their elected officers. Again and again, our polling reveals that voters persistently need insurance policies that can set up security and justice of their communities — not fearmongering.
Californians need to guarantee there may be therapy for habit, tackle the housing disaster and make our state extra inexpensive for all.
These preferences are mirrored within the election outcomes. In California and past, voters supported measures that forestall crime earlier than it may occur and hold our communities secure. Measure A, which can fund much-needed housing and homeless providers in Los Angeles, is poised to go. And two former public defenders operating for Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom, as a part of The Defenders of Justice’s effort to strengthen providers that tackle the basis causes of crime — not simply harshly punish — will probably be part of the bench.
So if Californians help reform, why did so many vote for Prop. 36?
Californians are scuffling with hovering price of dwelling, elevated homelessness, overdose deaths and considerations about crime. Voters are understandably frightened and pissed off that elected leaders are usually not doing sufficient. Years of relentless “if it bleeds, it leads” media protection of crime solely raised voter anxieties. And too typically, elected officers who help prison justice reform keep silent on crime or parrot “tough-on-crime” rhetoric.
These circumstances are ripe for exploitation and misinformation.
The particular pursuits teams’ deceptive message about Prop. 36 broke by way of due to the sheer sum of money and power behind it. Corporations like House Depot and Walmart, in addition to jail foyer teams, poured in practically $17 million — whereas the coalition opposing Prop. 36 had lower than half of that haul. The proponents of Proposition 36 peddled lies that promised “mass treatment,” whereas it can really slash funding for these very applications.
Voters do need these providers and applications, particularly for folks scuffling with habit. When Million Voters Venture canvassers contacted over 200,000 California voters and advised them Prop. 36 would really lower funding for efficient crime and homelessness prevention applications, greater than two-thirds mentioned they opposed the proposition. However that message wasn’t capable of break by way of due to the dimensions of deceptive data and the uneven enjoying discipline.
Outcomes just like the judicial races in Los Angeles present that when the enjoying discipline is even and voters hear we are able to have each security and justice, they select reform over incarceration.
Now, California should face the upcoming harms of this prison justice backlash and struggle for what folks so clearly need and deserve: crime prevention applications, extra entry to psychological well being care and drug therapy, and housing they will afford.
Voters are asking elected officers for actual options to crime, homelessness and the overdose disaster — not mass incarceration. In the event that they don’t hear about actual options, particular curiosity teams will hold utilizing prison justice reform as a scapegoat.
