Corona Daily 283: Proposition 20

In pandemic times, what do you do when a hungry man orders a meal at a café, and after finishing it, runs away without paying the bill? Or a couple who steal baby diapers from the supermarket? Or a family evicted for not paying the rent breaks in into a vacant house, and lives there illegally? How do you classify their crimes? How long should their sentences be? These are not hypothetical questions for a philosophy student. On Saturday, residents of California are required to vote on them.

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The world knows about the Trump-Biden election. But that is one among many. On Saturday, 3 November, American citizens in California are asked to vote 16 times. To be precise, four of them are elections. From among the choices, the Californian voters will vote for: 1. President 2. House of representatives 3. State assembly and 4. Senate. In addition, they will answer 12 referendum questions, called propositions 14-25. Each proposition, as a rule, requires a yes/no answer. Today, I will talk only about proposition 20.

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The supporters of Proposition 20 call it the “Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act”.

Technically, thefts are classified into misdemeanors and felonies. Misdemeanors are non-violent, less serious. The amount stolen also plays a part. Stealing diapers from the shop would be a misdemeanor. Felony is a more serious crime, and accordingly gets a longer sentence.

USA has a legal distinction between prisons and jails. A prison, usually operated by a state or the federal government, holds people for longer periods of time, sometimes for years. A jail is operated by a local government, and holds people for a shorter duration. Jails host people with short sentences, as well as detain accused before trial or conviction. Thieves convicted of misdemeanor would normally land in jails.

Proposition 20, the tough-on-crime bill, wants to elevate certain non-violent thefts, currently misdemeanors, to be charged as felonies, no matter how little was stolen. It also creates two new crimes – “serial theft” and “organized retail theft”, that could be charged as felonies, and punished with imprisonment up to three years.  

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California, America’s most populous state, has overcrowded prisons. Ten years ago, the US Supreme Court expressed its displeasure at the way prisoners were treated in California. Prisons held nearly twice the maximum capacity. Some inmates were placed in “telephone-booth size cages without toilets”. A day wouldn’t pass without a prisoner dying in a Californian jail. The enraged Supreme Court asked the state to find ways to reduce the prison population, or the Court would be forced to order release of a certain number, the Court threatened.

The reforms began with change in legislation in 2011, called “realignment”. It shifted the responsibility for non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offenders from state prisons to local jails. This was the first building block for later reforms.

Proposition 47 (2014) converted many felonies into misdemeanors. For drug possession or shoplifting below $900, one could no longer be a felon. A new measure allowed the inmates to apply for rehabilitative programs, and also request the parole board to release them early. The release was not guaranteed, but the parole board could examine the context and the prisoner’s conduct. This enabled thousands to cut short their sentences.

Another proposition, Proposition 57 (2016) changed the state constitution and made concessions to inmates convicted of non-violent felonies.

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Proposal 20 (2020) is in essence a bill to reverse the work done in the past ten years on prison reforms in California. Tomorrow, I will present views of the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ campaigns.

Ravi