Senate Bill 180, which has passed through the legislature and is currently on the governor’s desk, aims to change a sentence enhancement related to dealing drugs. The bill would repeal the three-year enhancement for a prior conviction related to drug sales, except in cases where a minor is used in the crime. The repeal would affect just 2.3% of the people who entered prison between October 2015 and September 2016. In light of the state’s efforts to downsize its prison and jail populations, however, the bill’s passage could create momentum for similar reforms.
California’s best-known sentence enhancement mechanism is the Three Strikes Law, passed in 1994. The law doubles the sentence of any offender convicted of a second serious or violent crime. A third conviction results in a sentence of between 25 years to life. There are roughly 38,000 second and third “strikers” in California prisons, a little more than one-third of the prison population.
Overall, California has more than 100 separate code sections that enhance sentences based on the current offense or the offender’s record. For example, using a firearm while committing a violent and/or sexual felony adds anywhere from 10 to 25 years. A gang-related felony results in 2 to 10 additional years, depending upon the seriousness of the offense.
As of September 2016, 79.9% of prisoners in institutions operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had some kind of sentence enhancement; 25.5% had three or more. Aside from second and third strikes, the most common enhancement adds one year for each previous prison or jail term.
Research on sentence lengths offers little support for the idea that the threat of longer sentences deters people from committing crimes. Physically removing a person from society does prevent him or her from engaging in criminal activity, which is part of the appeal of enhancements. However, research shows that this “incapacitation effect” varies across different types of offenders and that longer prison stays are wasteful when applied to people who are “low frequency” offenders.
When considering this bill and similar proposals, the state has the difficult task of balancing the costs of keeping people in custody— in terms of tax dollars spent on expensive prison beds as well as collateral costs borne by families and communities—against the potential cost to public safety.
While reforms were unquestionably needed—the state faced a possible federal order to release more than 30,000 prisoners early—critics have voiced concerns that public safety may be negatively affected and have asked whether less incarceration would reverse California’s long-term decline in crime rates.
How can we explain these differences? Before rushing to conclusions, there are several questions that need to be answered first. How have reforms affected factors such as arrests and incarceration? Do these differ across counties and what is their relationship to crime rates? Also, California’s crime trends may be affected by factors unrelated to recent reforms. How do statewide trends compare to what other states are seeing? Finally, have California’s reforms improved outcomes for those released from our jails and prisons? If so, this could help lower crime rates in the coming years. Our goal at PPIC is to address these important questions in our upcoming research.
The measure required that the first transfer of savings occur by August 2016. This first transfer totaled more than $67 million and went to the three agencies tasked with distributing the grants (Table 1). The first grants were awarded this month. It’s estimated that nearly $46 million in savings will be transferred for fiscal year 2017–18. By 2019–20, long-term savings will be $75 million annually.
Although a number of policies have contributed to this decline, it is largely attributable to two recent major reforms: the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act, or AB 109, which shifted responsibility for many non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual offenders to county jail and probation systems; and Proposition 47, which reclassified some drug and property felonies as misdemeanors. Since January 2015, two months after voters approved Prop 47, the prison population has remained below the court-mandated target. That is good news for the state. However, the institutional population is only about 1.1 percent, or 900 inmates, below the target. Given this slim margin—and given the fact that the state still needs to show that it is providing adequate health care—the pressure is still on.
Voters may well be inclined to see reductions in spending on prisons, and with good reason. California’s corrections budget continues to grow, with the governor requesting $10.6 billion from the General Fund for 2016–17—a historic high. This amount does not include more than $1 billion annually that the state transfers to counties to implement realignment. For 2016–17, the state is projecting the cost of the prison system to be almost $70,000 per prisoner. A significant reduction in the prison population could finally allow the state to stop the use of out-of-state contract beds and possibly close a state prison. These actions could potentially lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings. Without further reductions in the prison population, it will be difficult for the state to stop using contract beds and remain below the court-ordered population cap. 
Proposition 47 helped bring down the prison population by about 8,000 inmates, below the mandated target of 137.5 percent of design capacity (the number of inmates that facilities were designed to house). The target was set by a federal court in 2009 in the wake of lawsuits over prison conditions; at the time, it meant a reduction of almost 40,000 prisoners. The prison population has remained below the target since January 2015. This is a key requirement for the state to regain control of prison health care, which is currently overseen by a court-appointed receiver. The total prison population has dropped by slightly more than 45,000 inmates since it peaked in 2006. 
As we noted above, reports of increased crime in a number of cities and counties in 2015 have fueled concerns about the impact of these population reductions. Between January and August, violent crime in Sacramento was up by 24 percent compared to the same months in 2014. In Riverside County, violent crime was up almost 11 percent in the first six months of 2015. In the City of Los Angeles, it was up almost 21 percent in the same time period. 
As of August 2015, the total prison population had dropped by almost 45,000 inmates from its 2006 peak. The majority (about 55%) of the decline was a result of realignment, which was implemented in October 2011 in response to a court order to improve prison conditions by reducing overcrowding. However, it took the passage of Proposition 47 last November—which reclassified a number of felony drug and property offenses as misdemeanors—and building and renting additional prison beds to reach the court-ordered population target of 137.5 percent of design capacity. The prison population has declined by almost 7,700 since November and has remained below the mandated target since January 2015. This is a key requirement for the state to regain control over prison health care—currently, a court-appointed receiver oversees health care in the system.
Although we can see that prison population numbers have dropped in each of the nine months since Proposition 47 passed, we need to be more cautious about the measure’s impact on jail population numbers because we only have jail data for the first two months. Also, counties have been working to implement and refine new jail policies and procedures, and these may be having an impact on jail populations. For instance, data through March 2015 for Los Angeles County show that the jail population dipped below 16,000 inmates in December (down from more than 18,000 in October), but rose above 17,000 in January and stayed above 17,000 through March. This increase is related to the sheriff requiring that inmates serve a larger percentage of their sentences before release. We may see similar developments in other counties. Nonetheless, even in Los Angeles there was a noticeable drop in the jail population compared to months before passage of Proposition 47. 
California currently supports community college education for all low-income students, including inmates, through fee waivers. However, these waivers are not available for students who wish to pursue four-year degrees. These students rely on other forms of aid, including federal Pell Grants. The Pell Grant pilot program presents an opportunity for CSU to begin working with CDCR to leverage federal dollars to expand access to high-quality, onsite higher education for inmates in state prison.