Legal Commentary

CA's Criminal Justice Propositions: Mixed Results

By TChris

In addition to the disappointing outcome of California's Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, the state's voters made mistakes in rejecting Proposition 5, which would have shifted the state's response to drug crimes from incarceration to treatment, and approving Proposition 9, which purports to give new "rights" to crime victims.

It is particularly troubling that MADD aggressively lobbied voters to reject proposition 5 even though it had nothing to do with drunk driving, and even though an organization that wants to prevent impaired driving should be supportive of increased funding for treatment programs. This is the latest example of how MADD, having accomplished its objective of raising awareness of drunk driving and toughening drunk driving penalties around the country, has outlived its usefulness and now seeks to perpetuate itself by intruding into criminal justice issues that are none of its concern.

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A brighter result in California voting is the rejection of Proposition 6. The proposition would have lavished money on law enforcement agencies while increasing penalties for certain crimes and requiring "satellite tracking of sex offenders and other former state prison inmates." Despite California's powerful prison-industrial complex, which gives knee-jerk support to any proposal that might increase the population of the state's dysfunctional, overcrowded prison system, the proposition lost by a 70-30 margin.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 05, 2008 (boomark / email).