Crime is up in Los Angeles and if you fell for Prop 47, you're to blame. Prop 47 was sold as this great way to save money and help law enforcement, by reducing penalties for some criminal offenses.
Our leaders don't want to worry about overcrowded jails, so they came up with a scheme to lower offenses to keep criminals out of jail.
The RAND Corporation studied Prop 47 to see if local governments have saved any money since it went into effect. What did their study turn up? Nothing really.
Sarah Hunter, the study's lead author, said:
“Some departments had too few resources prior to the passage of Proposition 47, so any savings that occurred led to improvements in workloads, but did not necessarily create cost savings. Moreover, we found there was too little information tracked about specific workload changes to translate into reliable fiscal estimates.”
All we know is this - crime is up. Prop 47 doesn't work. Eric Leonard has more on RAND's study: