Proposition 47 was enacted to comply with a 2011 California Supreme Court order, which upheld that California’s overcrowded prisons violated incarcerated individuals’ Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
“In 2011, our prisons were bursting at the seams, and California was ranked either first or second behind Texas as having the highest per capita incarceration rate of any state in the country,” Kubrin said. “It was so bad that the Supreme Court stepped in and told us we needed to reduce our prison population by 33,000 individuals.”
“So the goal of Prop 47 was to limit our prison population, to reduce the number of people that we send to state prisons,” said Kubrin. “Prop 47 has achieved that goal while not causing crime rates to go up.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Wednesday aimed at curbing organized retail theft, according to Associated Press reporting. The law allows prosecutors to seek to charge the offense as either a misdemeanor or a felony.
