Program Profile: The Impact of California’s Proposition 47 (The Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative) on Recidivism

This is a policy reform passed by California voters to downgrade drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, to focus prison resources on the most-serious violent offenses, reinvest savings toward prevention, and reduce recidivism. The program is rated Promising. In an evaluation of recidivism, the intervention group had statistically significantly fewer rearrests and reconvictions for any crime or revocation, compared with the control group, at the 1-year follow-up.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Target Population

California’s Proposition 47 (also known as “the Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative,” “Prop 47,” and “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act”) is a front-end reform passed by voters in November 2014 that downgraded a range of drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. “Front end” policies are ones that affect the flow of individuals into justice system custody by reducing punishments, downgrading certain offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, legalizing some types of drugs, and increasing the use of noncustodial sanctions such as diversion or probation (Turner et al. 2015).

The goals of Prop 47 are to concentrate prison spending on the most violent and serious offenses; to maximize alternatives for nonserious, nonviolent crimes; to invest the savings generated from the proposition into community prevention programs; and to support recidivism reduction.

Program Components

Prop 47 implemented three changes to California’s felony sentencing laws:

1. Theft and drug possession offenses: Changed certain theft and drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, except for persons with certain prior convictions.
2. Resentencing: Authorized defendants currently serving sentences for felony offenses that would have qualified as misdemeanors under the proposition to petition courts for resentencing under the new misdemeanor provisions.
3. Reclassification: Authorized defendants who have completed their sentences for felony convictions that would have qualified as misdemeanors under the proposition to apply to reclassify those convictions to misdemeanors.

The state excludes individuals previously convicted of serious, violent, or sexual offenses as defined in the state penal code.

In addition to defelonizing drug possession, California’s Prop 47 also classifies five property offenses for which the dollar value is less than $950 as misdemeanors: 1) theft, 2) receiving stolen property, 3) shoplifting, 4) check forgery, and 5) writing bad checks. Before passage of the proposition, these offenses could be charged as either felonies or misdemeanors.

Prop 47 applies to individuals sentenced after November 2014 and retroactively to individuals already serving prison or jail sentences at the time of passage, although judges have the authority to deny petitions for resentencing (Grattet et al. 2016). As of December 2018, there had been more than 380,000 petitions and applications for resentencing (Judicial Council of California 2019).

Further, California’s reinvestment approach requires that 65 percent of the savings from the reduction of prison bed use that results from the proposition be directed back to local governments to support mental health and substance use treatment and increase evidence-based programming to reduce recidivism (Bartos and Kubrin 2018).

Study 1

Bird, Nguyen, and Grattet (2020) used a quasi-experimental design to assess the impact of California’s Proposition 47 (Prop 47) on rearrest and reconviction rates for individuals convicted of drug offenses at a 1-year follow-up. Twelve counties representative of the state — Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Humboldt, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Shasta, and Stanislaus — were identified and provided local jail and probation systems data. Taken together, these counties comprise 60 percent of California’s population and represent the state’s geographic diversity by including counties from the northern, southern, coastal, and valley areas. Data from the participating counties were merged with data from the California Department of Justice and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Measures from these latter sources include criminal history and recidivism outcomes.

Drawing on a rich set of individual-level characteristics, a genetic matching strategy was used to conduct two separate analyses. Genetic matching is a matching strategy similar to but distinct from propensity score matching. The authors maintain that genetic matching improves on propensity score matching by directly matching on characteristics to construct a control group that is most similar to the treated group across all the observed factors that may drive selection into treatment.

In the first comparison (the main analysis), individuals convicted of drug possession offenses in the pre–Prop 47 period (November 2012 through October 2013) were matched with similar individuals convicted of drug possession offenses in the post–Prop 47 period (November 2014 through October 2015) to estimate the effects of Prop 47 on rearrest and reconviction rates, controlling for any remaining differences in individual characteristics and including county fixed effects. The second comparison (the difference-in-differences analysis) compared all individuals convicted of eligible drug possession offenses both before and after the passage of Prop 47 (the Prop 47 drug possession intervention group) with individuals convicted of other drug offenses such as possession for sale, sales, or manufacturing that are not eligible under Prop 47, both before and after its passage (the non–Prop 47 control group), to assess whether changes in the recidivism rates of the two groups are attributable to Prop 47 or, instead, to broader recidivism trends.

The CrimeSolutions review of this study focuses on the difference-in-difference analysis. This analysis compares individuals convicted of drug possession offenses with individuals convicted of other drug offenses both before and after the passage of Prop 47. The post–Prop 47 drug possession offenses group included 14,002 individuals convicted of drug possession offenses. This group was predominately male (82 percent); on average 24.4 years old at first conviction; and about 40 percent Hispanic, 39 percent White, and 17 percent Black. Further, these individuals had an average of 18.7 total arrests, with an average of 7.5 total arrests for drug crimes. The initial pre–Prop 47 drug possession offenses group included 21,303 individuals from the pre–Prop 47 period. After genetic matching, the pre–Prop 47 drug possession group was reduced to 7,490 individuals who had characteristics similar to those of the post–Prop 47 drug possession group. Similarly, the post–Prop 47 other-drug-offenses group included 20,090 individuals convicted of other drug offenses. This group was predominately male (81 percent); on average, 24.9 years old at first conviction; and 41 percent Hispanic, 36 percent White, and 17 percent Black. Further, these individuals had an average of 17 total arrests, with an average of 6.8 total arrests for drug crimes. The initial pre–Prop 47 other-drug-offenses group included 18,135 individuals from the pre–Prop 47 period. After genetic matching, the pre–Prop 47 group was narrowed to 11,008 persons who closely resembled the post–Prop 47 other-drug-offenses group. The difference-in-differences analysis used regression with controls to compare changes in rearrest and reconviction rates for any crime for all individuals in the Prop 47 drug possession intervention group (n = 21,492) with all individuals in the non–Prop 47 control group (n = 31,098) at the 1-year follow-up.

Finally, there was the possibility that Prop 47 would encourage a shift in charging practices away from Prop 47 offenses, perhaps swapping what previously would have been charged as a Prop 47 offense with a non–Prop 47 offense. To explore this issue of charge-swapping, the authors also report findings for a measure of rearrest that includes supervision violations and a measure of reconviction that includes revocations. All analyses controlled for differences in individual characteristics and included county fixed effects. Subgroup analyses were conducted within specific offense categories.

Subgroup Analysis

Bird, Nguyen, and Grattet (2020) examined the impact of California’s Proposition 47 (Prop 47) on recidivism rates within offense categories. Individuals in the Prop 47 drug possession intervention group had statistically significant reductions in rearrests and reconvictions for drug offenses, compared with those in the non–Prop 47 control group. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in rearrests or reconvictions for property offenses. However, the intervention group had a statistically significant increase in rearrests for crimes against persons (specifically, assaults and domestic violence) and reconviction rates for assault with a deadly weapon, compared with the control group.

Charge-swapping was also explored at the 1-year follow-up. There was a greater decline in rearrest rates for any crime or revocation for individuals in the Prop 47 drug possession intervention group, compared with individuals in the non–Prop 47 control group. The finding suggests that law enforcement in the post–Prop 47 period did not “charge swap” and pursue supervision violations instead of formal arrests. The difference was statistically significant. There was also a greater decline in reconviction rates for any crime or revocation for those in the intervention group, compared with individuals in the control group, suggesting that law enforcement in the post–Prop 47 period did not pursue revocations instead of convictions. The difference was statistically significant.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: