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Prop. 47-funded programs are working to break cycles of crime

Ten years ago, California voters soured on the state’s decades’-long experiment with mass incarceration. After years in which badly thought out, financially devastating and morally corrosive laws such as Three Strikes and You’re Out made California less safe, in 2014 a majority of the electorate opted for a new approach.

In passing Proposition 47, Californians made a bet on a more effective approach to criminal justice. Instead of sending people to prison for minor crimes, more people would be sentenced to jail, and the resulting savings would be invested in proven crime prevention strategies like drug and mental health treatment programs, job training, services and support for crime victims and supportive housing.

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Prop 47 Has Saved California Millions. These Are the Programs It’s Funded (NPR)

In 1997, Tommy Eugene Lewis III was sentenced to 41 years to life in state prison for attempted murder after he shot and injured another driver. He was 18 years old.

Three years ago, at 43, Lewis was released from prison. He’d spent his entire adult life behind bars and wasn’t sure what was next.