Authored by Cynthia Cai via The Epoch Times,
As stories of smash-and-grab robberies, thieves targeting media crews, and fatal shootings have filled headlines in recent months, two criminal prosecutors say some of this criminal activity may be the result of policy changes in California shifting the law from protecting victims to shielding suspects.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert (L) and Sacramento Police Department Chief Katherine Lester at the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office in Sacramento, Calif., on May 3, 2022. (Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee/TNS)
Over the past decade, California has implemented a number of criminal law reforms to reduce its prison population.
“We’ve got this bad combination of kind of flooding our communities with releases. You’ve got inadequate supervision; you’ve got inadequate plans for them [and]inadequate rehabilitation,” said Anne Marie Schubert, district attorney for Sacramento County.
In May 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the medical and mental health care provided by California’s prisons has fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements and has failed to meet prisoners’ basic health needs,” with overcrowding highlighted as the main cause.
A California Department of Corrections officer speaks to inmates at Chino State Prison in Chino, Calif., on Dec. 10, 2010. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Following this ruling, lawmakers and voters passed a series of measures that reduced sentences for certain crimes and diverted offenders from state prisons to county jails.
Starting with Assembly Bill 109, state lawmakers proposed and voters passed a measure that allows non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders to be supervised at the local county level after being released from California state prisons.
The legislation established the California Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 and aimed to meet the Supreme Court order to reduce the prison population in the state’s 33 prisons (now 34 prisons, according to a February 2022 report).
In 2014, California voters passed Proposition 47, which classifies stealing up to $950 as a misdemeanor crime (up from $400). The law also reclassified some drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in county jail.
Proposition 47 has become more controversial in recent months, as some residents and officials have attributed the law to the recent rise in theft. California’s string of smash-and-grab retail thefts, which began near the end of 2021, prompted state legislators to introduce measures that would either repeal or amend Proposition 47 in an effort to address the rising crime.
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