The voters have spoken. Not only did they re-elect Barack Obama but in two states — Colorado and Washington — possession of small quantities of marijuana was legalized. A clear message to the federal government to back off. At the same time California voters sent another message: the current “strike 3 and you’re out” law is way too harsh. The measures I‑502 in Washington and Amendment 64 in Colorado was the culmination of about a half century of efforts to bring some sanity to…
Implementation problems highlighted in a recent Sacramento Bee editorial stand to undermine California’s criminal justice realignment efforts. Most notably, the composition of county-level Community Corrections Partnership (CCP) committees has been called into question. Voting members of these committees are as follows: chiefs of probation and police, the public defender, the presiding judge of the Superior Court, the sheriff, and one social services worker or drug/alcohol abuse…
Election Day has arrived and California has 3 ballot initiatives that directly impact our state criminal justice system. Prop 34: Support California voters reinstated the death penalty in 1978, following the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia, which ruled the practice cruel and unusual. Since 1978, the state has sentenced roughly 900 persons with a death sentence, but only 13 were subsequently executed. The state presently has a death row population of 724 . The death…
While Texas and Missouri continue to make steady, substantial steps towards juvenile justice realignment (as mentioned recently by CJCJ), California seems mired in a state of indecision. Though acknowledging the need for wholesale reform, the state lacks the political commitment to implement the policy changes necessary to accomplish it. In 2011 – 2012, Governor Brown proposed full-scale juvenile justice realignment with support from the Little Hoover Commission, the Legislative Analysts…
There is a shift taking place in the landscape of California’s juvenile justice system. In an effort to move away from a punitive model which has historically framed youth involved in the juvenile justice system as a liability, a new framework has emerged. Traditionally, juvenile justice has been rooted in a deficit based approach that focuses on addressing the youth’s problem behaviors such as poor decision making or addiction. By placing emphasis on the acts of delinquency alone,…