Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel
initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens
of thousands of drug offenders.
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO – Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed a novel initiative requiring treatment instead of jail or prison for tens of thousands of drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative are back with a follow-up measure that requires even greater leniency.
Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros is helping fund Proposition 5 on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would prohibit sending paroled drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record or are considered high risk by prison officials.
The initiative would shorten parole for most drug and property crimes, while lengthening it for violent and serious felons. It also would require the state to put hundreds of millions of dollars into treatment and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees.
To opponents, it’s another step down a dangerous path that fails to make drug users accountable for their actions and lets drug dealers off the hook. Without the threat of jail or prison time, offenders won’t get serious about true rehabilitation.
Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose in 1998 but received court-ordered rehabilitation, is the initiative’s most prominent opponent.
Sheen argues that it will discourage drug treatment by steering most addicts away from jail, even if they keep using drugs or refuse to attend rehabilitation programs.
“You have to be given a stern proposition. The judge will say to you, ‘You’re either facing jail or you’re facing rehab.’ That’s the program that we’ve found to work,” Sheen said in a telephone interview.
The star of “The West Wing” also opposed Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative that required treatment for nonviolent first- and second-time drug offenders.
Supporters of that initiative developed Proposition 5 after seeing money for drug rehabilitation programs dwindle, from $145 million in the 2006-07 fiscal year to $108 million this year.
Last year, a University of California, Los Angeles study recommended the state increase money for Proposition 36 programs to about $228 million a year.
Nearly 20 percent of California’s 171,000 inmates are imprisoned for drug offenses, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is about treatment, and it’s about breaking cycles of crime that are driven by a completely treatable condition. The fact that we provide so little treatment is unconscionable,” said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, deputy California director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network and a campaign manager for Yes on 5.
Penny Sheridan of Sacramento has first-hand experience with rehabilitation programs and believes Proposition 5 is another step toward helping addicts. She cycled through county jail and prison for eight years because of a methamphetamine addiction she developed as a teenager.
The last time she tested positive for drugs, her parole officer sent her to inpatient rehabilitation for 90 days instead of back to prison. That was two years ago. Now she is off parole, has a steady job and is going back to college.
“I’m not a liability to society anymore,” said Sheridan, 34.
Proposition 5 would not come without a price to California taxpayers if voters approve it.
The initiative would trigger $610 million in new state spending for treatment through mid-2010, followed by annual increases that would track the state’s population growth and cost of living. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projected that state spending required by the measure eventually could top $1 billion a year.
Supporters say the cost would be offset by reducing the prison population 17 percent over four years because more drug offenders and parolees would be sent to diversion programs. The analysis says that could save $1 billion in annual prison costs and $2.5 billion for new prisons.
Former state corrections secretary Jeanne Woodford supports the initiative as a responsible way to ease prison crowding. At its core, the debate is over finding a balance between incarceration and treatment, she said.
Law enforcement officials say the initiative dangerously broadens diversion programs established under Proposition 36.
For example, those convicted of property crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and auto and identity theft could get treatment instead of jail if they persuade a judge their crimes were related to drug use.
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a former drug court judge who is now president of the state prosecutors’ association, calls it “the drugs-made-me-do-it” defense.
Additionally, parole would be shortened from three years to six months for nonviolent drug or property offenders, including dealers caught with up to $50,000 worth of methamphetamine. Marijuana possession would be reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction, similar to a traffic ticket. Inmates could earn more time off their sentences by completing treatment programs.
Opponents also object that Proposition 5 would give drug users five tries at rehabilitation programs before they could be jailed, up from three in Proposition 36. The initiative’s supporters said the two additional rehabilitation failures are allowed because the proposition takes into account an existing diversion program that lets first- or second-time offenders avoid criminal convictions.
Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer, president of the state chiefs’ association, said the initiative amounts to a “drug dealers’ bill of rights.”
Drug-addicted ex-convicts have different opinions about the proposition.
Wesley Williams Jr. of Culver City said he never would have kicked a cocaine habit that cost him his home, his family and his law career had a Los Angeles judge not sent him to jail for a week for flunking out of a rehabilitation program.
“With addicts, unless there are consequences to their actions, they are going to continue to use,” said Williams, now a 55-year-old business owner.
