\FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – Proposition 47 was passed by voters in 2014, but remains the subject of debate, including by Fresno’s Police Chief, speaking on a panel in the state capitol.
At the meeting held Thursday, June 21st in Sacramento, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, joined San Francisco DA George Gascón (below left), and Katie Howard (below, right), the executive director of the Board of State and Community Corrections for a panel discussion on how Prop 47 has affected state and local corrections systems.
Researcher Mia Bird from the Public Policy Institute of California outlined the findings from a new report.
“We see an overall decline in reconviction rates of about 3.1 percentage points and we see that this is largely driven again by declines and reconvictions for Prop 47 offenses,” said Bird (photo below).
The report: The Impact of Proposition 47 on Crime and Recidivism showed a decline among property and drug offenses, and “no evidence that violent crime increased as a result of Proposition 47” as the shift in resources went from incarceration to treatment programs.
But Chief Dyer had a different take, saying that decreasing crime numbers are deceptive.
He explained a negative impact of dropping a felony crime down to a misdemeanor.
“It’s a vicious cycle because we find them, we issue them another citation and they fail to appear. So two-thirds of them never show up before a judge,” said Dyer, “but those individuals that do now for a misdemeanor – and the question is asked: ‘Do you want a misdemeanor conviction?’ knowing there’s no consequences, no room in the jail or treatment, they say I’ll take the misdemeanor probation and be released and continue with a life of crime.”
Click to listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
