Report Links California’s 2014 Criminal Justice Reform Law to Increased Crime Rates

With voters considering whether to approve Proposition 36 to get tougher on crime, researchers weigh the impact of reform efforts.

Union Square visitors look at damage to a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco on Nov. 21, 2021. Danielle Echeverria/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

California voters in 2014 passed a ballot proposition aiming to reduce the state’s prison population by reducing some felonies to misdemeanors, but they may also have fueled an increase in crime.

That’s the finding of a Manhattan Institute paper published Oct. 17 that lists the effects of Proposition 47, which downgraded some drug and theft crimes—including small-scale possession of certain drugs, check fraud, forgery, grand theft, and larceny—to misdemeanors.