Californians' crime concerns put pressure on criminal justice reform and progressive DAs

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Ten years ago, Alley Bean joined 3.7 million Californians in voting for a measure that downgraded many nonviolent felony crimes to misdemeanors, such as petty shoplifting and drug use, hoping it would lead to a more equitable criminal justice system and help end mass incarceration. “I thought there was going to be rehabilitation” with criminal justice reform, said Bean, a lifelong Democrat. To the south in Los Angeles, District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Proposition 47 and won in election 2020 after protests and racial reckoning following the police killing of George Floyd, faces stiff competition from a former federal prosecutor who calls himself a “hard middle” candidate. “It undermines public safety to lock people up on low-level offenses, exactly like Prop 36 provides.” That assertion is borne out by a 2017 Stanford Law Review study focusing on misdemeanors in Texas’ Harris County, which found that people jailed for even just a week were 32% more likely to commit a felony within 18 months.