California transformed its justice system. But now crime is up, and critics want rollbacks

LA Times

Stolen objects are displayed while Capt. Lillian Carranza, second from left, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division, shares details about arrests made in connection with recent burglaries at the homes of celebrities.

"Over the last decade, California has led the nation in reducing its prison population.
"The state has shortened sentences and diverted some offenders to the counties for incarceration and supervision, transforming California’s criminal justice system into what supporters hope will become a humane model around the country.
"But amid the changes, crime has increased in recent years, sparking debate about the causes and giving ammunition to those leading a new effort to roll back some of the reforms. 
"An analysis by the Marshall Project and the Los Angeles Times found that California’s crime rates remain near historic lows, but overall crime spiked in both 2012 and 2015, the years that immediately followed two major statewide measures aimed at decreasing the number of people in prison. Those jumps were mainly driven by increases in property crimes, particularly thefts from motor vehicles.

The California Experiment  This is one of an occasional series examining the impact of recent justice measures aimed at reducing incarceration. It is a collaboration between the Los Angeles Times and the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news outlet.

"After decades of mirroring national downward trends in violent crime, California saw a 12% increase from 2014 to 2017, while the violent crime rate in the other 49 states together increased only 3%, the analysis showed. In 2014, California voters approved a ballot measure that reduced sentences for many low-level drug and property crimes."

. . . Three years later, California voters approved Proposition 47, which turned drug use and most theft convictions from felonies to misdemeanors. In 2016, voters overhauled the state parole system by backing Proposition 57, which gave thousands of inmates the chance to earn an earlier release from prison.The undeniable result of all these measures is that people are on the street today who would have been locked up in previous years.

. . .
Speaking of California voters:  Bienvenidos a Mexico: California's ballot-harvesting, sure enough, is borrowed from Mexico

Most congressional elections there showed Republican candidates in the lead on election night in the last midterm, but all of them flipped to Democrats as the Democrat-led ballot-harvesting brought in votes and votes and votes from supposed precincts, harvested by their political operatives, until the result went the other way.  

. . .