California Proposition 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, was an initiative statute that permanently changed state law to allow qualifying defendants convicted of non-violent drug possession offenses to receive a probationary sentence in lieu of incarceration. As a condition of probation defendants are required to participate in and complete a licensed and/or certified community drug treatment program. If the defendant fails to complete this program or violates any other term or condition of their probation, then probation can be revoked and the defendant may be required to serve an additional sentence which may include incarceration.
The proposition was passed with 6,233,422 (60.86%) votes in favor and 4,009,508 (39.14%) against on November 7, 2000 and went into effect on July 1, 2001 with $120 million for treatment services allocated annually for five years. The act is codified in sections 1210 and 3063.1 of the California Penal Code and Division 10.8 of the California Health and Safety Code.
Contents |
| Proposition 36 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Choice | Votes | Percentage |
| Yes | 6,233,422 | 60.86% |
| No | 4,009,508 | 39.14% |
| Valid votes | 10,242,930 | 91.92% |
| Invalid or blank votes | 899,913 | 8.08% |
| Total votes | 11,142,843 | 100.00% |
| Voter turnout | 70.94% | |
| Electorate | 15,707,307 | |
Not all defendants convicted of a non-violent drug possession offense are eligible for probation and treatment under Prop 36. Subdivision (b) of section 1210.1 of the California Penal Code deems the following defendants ineligible for the program:
Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was critical of Proposition 36 because many in the program fail to complete treatment. About 34 percent of drug offenders actually complete treatment. Schwarzenegger attempted to reform the proposition by enacting Senate Bill 1137. The bill would have given judges the power to sentence jail time for a brief period to drug offenders who relapsed. Proposition 36 supporters objected to the changes and an Alameda County court ordered an injunction on the reforms. Senate Bill 1137 did not go into effect.
Prop 36 is not retroactive, meaning that defendants who had to attend unlicensed drug rehabs prior to Prop 36 and the Drug Courts are not afforded the opportunity to have their cases reheard in court. Prop 36 and the Drug Courts have discontinued the use of unlicensed rehabs as sentencing tools due to concerns that unlicensed treatment could be unethical. Many drug offenders who had used use unlicensed rehabs had been abused and are unable to appeal past convictions due to the formation of the Drug Courts. Unlicensed rehabs are no longer used, but people who relied on them are not afforded any of Prop 36's protection. If Prop 36's benefits had been extended retroactively, these people would have received them; at present, they do not.
The state has been accused of misrepresenting agencies as Prop 36 supporters. For instance, the "SACPA-related links" section of the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Treatment Programs (ADP) website linked to the California Area Indian Health Services website. When the Indian Health Services office was contacted about this soon after Prop 36's passage, it stated that it was a federal agency and neither knew about nor endorsed Prop 36. The Indian Health Services did not know anything about being cited as a supporter of Prop 36, and contacted Kurt Klemencic of the ADP and had the federal link taken down from the state site. Klemencic stated that a person named Martin Martinez suggested the federal office's inclusion, but made no mention that it was, in fact, a federal office and that the inclusion was at the time when the federal government was disputing California's new lenient position on legalized marijuana quite actively.
Richard Krupp, the manager of the Substance Abuse Program Section of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), in 2004 questioned claims that Prop 36 had delivered the fiscal savings predicted by the state Legislative Analysts Office at the time voters considered the measure. In particular, Krupp noted that internal CDCR statistics showed that many parolees who violated parole conditions due to drug use and were then diverted into treatment pursuant to Prop 36, ended up committing new crimes while ostensibly in drug treatment programs. As a result, the California prison population actually increased because approximately 6-in-10 drug use-related parole violations that prior to the passage of Prop 36 would have resulted in re-imprisonment for 90-days, instead resulted in the commission of new crimes, with resultant prison terms of 2–4 years.[1]
The University of California, Los Angeles, which was chosen to run the required evaluation of Proposition 36, has issued three annual reports on the implementation and impact of the program since 2003. These reports provide data and analysis that help state legislators determine the future of the program each year.
A UCLA study released in April 2006 showed Proposition 36 is saving taxpayers $2.50 for every $1 invested. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, total savings for taxpayers over the past five years total $1.4 billion.[2][3] Another UCLA study found that convicted drug users had become more likely to be arrested on new drug charges since the proposition took effect [4].
|
|||||||||||||