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.