The Effects of California’s Proposition 47 on Jail Populations, Recidivism and Public Safety

• In Event: Punishment Build-ups and Retreats

Abstract

In November 2014 California voters passed Proposition 47, the next wave in a series of criminal justice reforms that have lowered statewide incarceration rates and re-prioritized corrections spending toward more serious offenders. Prop 47 prevented prosecutors from seeking felony convictions for a specific set of lower-level drug and property offenses, making individuals charged with these offenses ineligible for state prison and limiting the jail term they may receive to less than one year. This study leverages newly available, individual-level data collected from 13 county jail systems, representing about two-thirds of the statewide jail population, to examine the effects of Prop 47. We first assess how Prop 47 affected jail populations, particularly for those counties operating under court-ordered capacity constraints. We find that Prop 47 substantially reduced the jail population and that some counties took advantage of this new bed space to house more serious offenders for longer terms. We examine the public-safety trade-offs implicit in this re-prioritization of correctional resources by comparing the relative changes in the frequency and types of recidivism for both Prop 47 offenders and more serious offenders.

Authors

• Mia Bird, Public Policy Institute of California

• Sonya Tafoya, Public Policy Institute of California

• Ryken Grattet, Public Policy Institute of California

• Viet Nguyen, Public Policy Institute of California