California arrests rising in some counties despite reforms

A California law meant to retroactively reduce the severity of sentences for nonviolent crimes has had mixed success, with some law enforcement agencies arresting more people for minor crimes than before the measure took effect, according to a report released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Proposition 47, approved by about 60 percent of voters in November 2014, turned drug and property offenses from felonies into misdemeanors. The measure applies to drug possession for personal use and non-violent property crimes involving amounts under $950. For misdemeanor offenses, the law allows police officers to either arrest suspects or issue them tickets to appear in court.

The effectiveness of the law in reducing arrests depends on how police departments in the state’s 58 counties are making those decisions, the ACLU said. The report found steep drops in arrests in some counties for the first six months of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014. The number of arrests in San Francisco, for example, fell by half. In Sacramento, arrests fell by 43 percent.

But in other counties, arrests rose during the same period, the ACLU reported. Ventura County, near Los Angeles, made 10 percent more arrests in the first six months of 2015, while in Fresno County, arrests jumped by 77 percent.

The discrepancy was also apparent, in some cases, for the same charges. In Sacramento, jails averaged 225 bookings a month on methamphetamine possession charges in the first half of 2014, but that fell to 86 a month after the passage of Proposition 47. But in Orange County, those figures rose, with an average of 94 bookings per month in the first half of 2014, compared to 108 for the same period in 2015.

The ACLU said that the reasons for the disparity are unclear, but that the decisions of police officers and courts on how to treat non-violent offenders are shaping how the law is applied.

“We have seen a disappointing level of resistance from some in law enforcement around the state,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, director of drug policy at the ACLU of California.

She added that the public no longer supports arrests for minor offenses. “Voters said they want to stop wasting resources on draconian sentencings and instead start connecting people to get at underlying issues: drug addiction and mental health problems,” Dooley-Sammuli said.

The ACLU report also looked at other aspects of Prop 47, including the number of people waiting to see their sentences reduced retroactively. Taking a felony conviction off a criminal record can open up job opportunities to ex-offenders.

In June 2015, there were 160,000 convicts who had applied for the change, but the ACLU said counties could not provide exact statistics about how many applications had been approved. The report says that funding is lacking in many parts of the state for resentencing people who might be eligible.