The new laws have shrunk the prisons in CA. What happened after the release

From Kayla MihalovichCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

California over the past decades has adopted a series of criminal justice laws that had to allow more people to be outraged and to thin the state strongly Crowded closureS This week, the State Agency has released the most comprehensive view of how these changes are developing among ex-people who are closed.

The report detects low levels of recidivism among people who were older and served long sentences. These models contrasted with people in short sentences in prison for non -violence crimes that show higher rates of recidivism, the greater part of which were for offenses.

The Criminal Code Review Committee and the California Laboratory on Wednesday publishes the reportwho details the demographic and recidivism of five of the most important resentment policies implemented between 2012 and 2022 with governor Gavin Newo and former governor Jerry Brown.

• A change of three strokes: Proposal 36 in 2012 allowed people to serve a life sentence for a “frivolous, non -violent” third strike of a crime of petitions for resentment. Nearly half of the 2,200 people who were released were black and most were over 50. The group had a particularly low rate of recidivism.
• Lower penalties for drugs and small thefts: Proposal 47 In 2014, resolved prisoners convicted of certain crimes of drugs and thefts at low petitions for resentment. This population, which is the largest share of people published among all policies, had a higher percentage of recidivism.
• Restriction of crime murder allegations: The new laws in 2018 and 2022 reduced the circumstances of prosecutors to blame people with a crime if they were involved in a crime but did not pull the trigger to kill someone. The changes released had a very low rate of recidivism.
• Good behavior: The 2018 policy allows the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation to recommend angry due to changes in law or positive behavior. The secretary of the department indicated more than 2,200 people for resentment. The report found that 786 of these cases were denied. Politics released had a low rate of recidivism.
• Rethinking sentence improvements: The 2022 law allowed the courts to reduce the sentences for people who served time for improvements that were canceled through other laws. The report finds that black and Latinos represent 75% of people who have been resentful under the law.

In all five policies, approximately 12,000 people were outraged and 9,500 were published, according to the report. Black and Latin American people represent the bigger part of those published in policies.

Thehe Penal Code Reviewing CommitteeA State Agency, created by the legislature in 2020, is led by a group of scientists and legislators, most of whom are appointed by Newsom to recommend legal reforms. The agency has partnered with California policy, the UC Berkeley Research Institute to prepare the report.

Tom Esvic, the agency’s legal director, said the data show that policies were largely successful in reducing the prison population without increasing the risks of public safety and could serve as a plan for future changes.

About 90,000 people are imprisoned in the California prisons, down from a peak of about 170,000. It costs approximately $ 130,000 a year to close someone. As of December 2024, more than 30,000 deprived people were over 50 and served more than 15 years, according to the report.

The new laws “helped reduce the population of our prisons, but of course, this is a downturn in the bucket,” Nosewicz said. “That is why I think it is important to show how we can expand some of these opportunities and show ways that have worked and ways that are not.”

While the report includes one -year recidivism results for all five reform policies, only two of the policies were old enough to measure the three -year recidivism results, which is the standard time line for determining recidivism. Researchers Alice Skog and Johanna Lubo have admitted that as a restriction, noting that a longer period of time can give “significantly higher rates of recidivism.” They also noted that they could not take into account people who are eligible for policy, but did not apply to the courts or have been denied by judges.

Michelle Hanse, a special assistant in the legislative issues of the District Prosecutor’s Office of Los Angeles County, said the report was not an “intensive study”.

“It was a surface examination of the data,” she said.

Other district attorneys are critical of the committee on reviewing the Penal Code.

“In general, the recommendations of the committee, although well -meaning, have proved to be harmful to the victims, law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system and also threaten public safety,” said Jonathan Raven, CEO at the California District Attorney Association.

Women took advantage of changes in the killings of crimes

But Kate Chatfield, CEO of the California Public Defenders Association, said the unmistakable outrage, wrote great, works.

“Looking at this whole, 15 years is the max we need to have someone in prison. This should be the ceiling,” she said. “If you look at public safety, there is no reason to keep people in prison after they get old. This is shown by this data.”

Chatfield that made 2018 Law on Reform of Crime for MurderHe was struck by the number of women who were reunited under him. According to the report, women represent 11% of people who have been renowned and released, which is over 7% at the top, which represents in the general prison releases.

According to crime killing reforms, the report shows that nearly 1,200 people were resentful, most of whom were just over 21 years old during their crime and nearly half of which were black. Many were serving long prison terms – in general from 14 to 15 years – after they had never been imprisoned before.

For those who are released under crime killing reforms, researchers have found that the rate of recidivism is “more special” to 3% within a year and 7% within two years, most of which have been sentenced to crimes. Only five people out of 274 were convicted of a new serious or violent crime within three years.

“It enhances how correct it was the legislature and governor Brown to introduce and sign this reform,” said the former Okland Nancy Senim Senator Senator, who is the author of the 2018 Law. “The long sentence does not contribute to improved public safety. We only have a certain moment in which we are stored and use people and use people

“Who really should be imprisoned”?

Just over 4,700 deprived people were Outraged according to prop. 47Almost half of which were serving a crime of crime and under the age of 40 at the time of their release, according to the report. Researchers have found that 57% of people who have outraged under the proposal have been convicted of a new crime within three years of release, most of whom are crimes. For comparison, 42% of people released between 2018 and 2019 were convicted of a new crime within three years.

The voters last year canceled some of the prog. 47, when they passed a new initiative that extended the sentences for Certain crimes of theft and drugsS

Matt Kate, who was California Secretary for Repair by Former Rules. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brown were not surprised by these high rates of recidivism and said the combination of violations of the use of substances and property crimes was usually a “recipe for additional crimes committed at release”.

But this does not mean that these people should be imprisoned for a long time, he said.

“In California and in most of the United States, we have built the wrong prisons,” Kate said. “We have built places that are really good not to escape from prisoners and are good, usually in the holding of people – especially staff – safe. But they are an horrible environment for people to change their lives.”

Jennifer Schaffer, a former CEO of the Conditional Release Board, said reports that they would hope to motivate people to dig deeper and understand how California can do better.

“Whoever actually needs to be imprisoned is the question,” she said. “This idea that people who commit a low -level crime should not go to a state prison, I think it makes sense. It makes sense to treat themselves locally, unlike going to a state prison, because the state prison is unfortunately a very violent place.”

Kayla Mihalovic is California local news.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.