6 myths about crime as California voters weigh ballot measure on drugs, retail theft

BY NIGEL DUARA | CalMatters

Californians have gone back and forth on crime and punishment for years.

In 1994, they voted for harsher criminal penalties and a three-strikes law.

Twenty years later, in 2014, nearly 60% of voters approved Proposition 47, which sought to reduce the state’s prison and jail populations by changing some felony crimes into misdemeanors and directing more state money to drug and mental health rehabilitation.

RELATED: Poll shows runaway support for Prop. 36 measure to toughen theft, drug crime penalties

Now, another 10 years on, Californians are apparently ready to reverse course again by undoing some of the changes made by Prop. 47. A new poll shows they support by a wide margin the November ballot measure Proposition 36, which would toughen sentences for certain property and drug crimes.

Treating California voters as a predictable monolith is a national pastime, but it doesn’t appear to be true. Voters in the last 30 years have reversed course once on criminal justice and appear ready to do so again.

Here are six other myths about California crime — from street violence and guns to prisons and death row — and the truth behind them.

Myth: Street-level crime makes California cities unlivable

If crime is making California cities unlivable today, then it stands to reason that California cities must have been more livable in the last few decades, because crime must have been lower.

Except that’s not remotely the case. Statewide in 2023, the violent crime rate was 511 per 100,000 people. The high, in 1992, was slightly more than double that rate..

Even back then, and despite a violent uprising after a jury acquitted four police officers of assault in the beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles made Money Magazine’s top 50 most livable cities in 1992. So did San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego.

California’s overall violent crime drop has been huge, falling 47% between 1993 and 2022, the last year for which national data is available. The state has mirrored a slightly bigger violent crime rate drop of 49% during the same period.

The last time the violent crime rate was as low as it is now: 1970.

Property crime hit its high in California in 1980, and hasn’t returned to those levels in any decade since.

Even so, a pandemic jump in state property crime levels, especially larcenies, has alarmed many retailers and residents of some major cities, including Oakland.

Those concerns led to a raft of retail theft laws Newsom signed recently, making it easier to prosecute suspects accused of property crimes. They also shaped Prop. 36, the November ballot measure backed by district attorneys and major retailers to increase penalties for some theft and drug crimes – something the governor opposes.

Myth: California opened up its prisons 15 years ago, putting criminals back on the street

Decades of tough-on-crime laws in the 1980s and 1990s created a problem for California prisons: There were too many inmates and nowhere to put them. At its most crowded point in 2006, California prisons housed 173,000 people, more than double the system’s designed capacity.

In 2009, a three-judge federal panel declared overcrowding to be the main reason for health care deficiencies in the prison system, and mandated that the state reduce its prison population by about 30%.

The result was a decade-long experiment in criminal justice called “realignment.” By reducing the number of crimes that were considered felonies, California’s prisons slowly dropped their numbers – about 92,000 people this year – and they are expected to keep dropping.

That meant more people started serving their sentences in jails instead of prisons for crimes that were non-violent, non-serious and non-sexual. The change helped contribute to a lower incarceration rate statewide.

In 2014, voters went further, approving Prop. 47, which reduced certain property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Those changes are now up for reconsideration with Prop. 36.

So while California didn’t simply open its prison doors, it did conduct the biggest reduction in a state prison population in U.S. history.

Now, 17 other states and the federal Bureau of Prisons are housing more inmates than their prisons were designed to hold and eyeing California’s experience as a potential model.

Myth: Prop. 47 is the main reason California’s prison population dropped