YES on Prop 57: Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act.

For background information on this measure, refer to the Legislative Analyst’s Office analysis included in the Official Voter Information Guide.

League Analysis:

The League’s support for Prop 57 is especially strong in regard to its juvenile justice provisions. Before March 2000, the decision to try a youth accused of committing a crime in adult court was in the hands of a judge. Proposition 21 of that year transferred that decision to the prosecutor, the district attorney. The negative effects of that change are well understood. Young people sentenced to adult court and incarceration return to prison at a much higher rate than those in the juvenile system. They are also left with an adult record that hinders job-finding, housing, and other basic needs. Unfortunately, those most often caught in this system were, and are, children of color.

Proposition 57 provides community protection, as those committing adult violent crime such as murder, armed robbery and certain violent offenses can continue to be tried in adult courts. But children as young as 14, and those committing nonviolent offenses, have no place in the adult criminal justice system, a system where they are denied both education and rehabilitation. This is a system set up to fail, one that adds to prison overcrowding and to the growing cost of the criminal justice system.

Proposition 57 also focuses on education and rehabilitation with respect to adult offenders. It allows nonviolent inmates to gather credits for an earlier release on parole by showing good behavior and participating in education, job training, and other rehabilitative activities. It allows parole consideration for people with nonviolent convictions who complete the full prison term for their primary offense. It does not automatically release anyone from prison.

Combined, the two programs will save millions of dollars—and thousands of productive lives.

Join the Yes on Prop 47 campaign: Californians for Public Safety and Rehabilitation.

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Sample Letters to the Editor

Note: Please adapt these letters to your own community and check your local paper’s word limit for a published letter. If you are not a League president or their designee, you are not authorized to sign letters to the editor in the name of the League. You are encouraged, however, to express your views as a Californian and you are welcome to cite that you agree with the League’s position

Dear Editor:

Over the last several decades, California’s prison population has exploded by 500 percent, and prison spending has reached more than $10 billion a year. Yet too few offenders have been rehabilitated and many commit a further offense after release. Obviously, what we are doing does not work.

Evidence shows that when inmates are rehabilitated—given skills and education to successfully re-enter the community—they are less likely to re-offend and reenter the prison system. This is the goal of Proposition 57: to offer nonviolent offenders the opportunity to earn credits toward supervised release by participating in education and job training.

This is a common-sense solution that saves money, meets court-ordered goals, and protects our communities from reoffenders.

Vote YES on Proposition 57.

Sincerely,
Your name