Proposition 47: Effects of a California Drug Law Reform on Hospital Visits and Racial and Geographic Disparities in Criminal Justice Involvement PDF Download

Author: Alyssa Mooney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780438778429
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 81

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Book Description
Disparate rates of felony drug arrests and convictions across race and geography have implications for inequalities in health and social outcomes linked to criminal justice exposure. California Proposition 47 (Prop 47), passed in 2014, reduced drug possession offenses classified as felonies or wobblers (with prosecutorial discretion to file felony or misdemeanor charges) to misdemeanors. This dissertation examines three effects of Prop 47: 1) whether racial/ethnic disparities in drug arrests declined; 2) whether eliminating prosecutorial discretion for charging drug possession as a felony or misdemeanor reduced geographic disparities in felony convictions; and 3) unintended consequences with regards to drug-related hospital visits. For objective 1: using data on all drug arrests made in California from 2011-2016, we compared the immediate and one year post-policy changes in racial disparities in drug arrests between Whites, Blacks, and Latinos, controlling for secular and seasonal trends. For objective 2: after propensity score matching arrests made in the year after the implementation of Prop 47 to similar arrests in the year prior to Prop 47, we used mixed models to estimate the change in county variance in the probability of felony conviction. For objective 3: Incorporating data on all drug-related hospital visits in California from 2011-2015 with drug arrests data, we use county fixed effects models to estimate expected rates in the 10-months post-policy, and calculate the difference compared to observed rates. We use linear regression to test whether county-level changes in drug arrest rates were associated with changes in drug-related hospital visit rates. In the month following passage, absolute Black-White disparities in monthly felony drug arrests decreased from 81 to 44 per 100,000 and continued to decrease over time. The probability of a felony conviction among those arrested for Prop 47 drug offenses declined by 14 percentage points (95% CI: -0.16, -0.12), from 0.21 (95% CI: 0.19, 0.24) to 0.07 (95% CI: 0.06, 0.08). Counties with higher felony conviction probabilities pre-Prop 47 declined most, reducing cross-county variance, with no evidence of increases in felony convictions for concurrent offenses. Declines in arrests were not associated with increases in drug-related hospital visits.

Author: Marilyn YanHua Ee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
Proposition 47 is legislation recently passed in California that has sparked some controversy concerning its operations and efficacy. Although Proposition 47 was developed and launched with intended consequences, opponents claim that it is causing unintended consequences that are adverse in nature. None of these claims - intended and unintended - have been sufficiently substantiated by empirical evidence. This study examined the trends in four key areas - prison populations, drug treatment admissions, crime rates, and arrest rates - to test the claims about the unintended consequences of Prop 47. Prop 47's intended consequences are downward trends in prison populations, crime and arrests, and upward trends in drug treatment admissions. Its unintended consequences are trends that contrast or otherwise deviate from those of the intended consequences. Four years of data, two years prior to Prop 47 and two years after Prop 47, for all four areas were collected and analyzed. The results demonstrate that contrary to intended results, prison populations increased, drug treatment admissions decreased, crime rates increased, and arrest rates partially increased, showing support for the unintended consequences of Proposition 47. This study is one of the first empirical inquiries assessing the unintended consequences of Prop 47 and contributes to the general literature of public policy. As part of the analysis, limitations and suggestions for future research are addressed.

Author: Gina A. Price
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Environmental economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Despite the existence of legal markets for both medical and recreational marijuana in California, the illicit market for marijuana still represents the majority in the state. With strict regulations and financial requirements accompanying marijuana policies, many participants in the industry continue to buy and sell in the illegal market to avoid extra costs. However, these costs are realized indirectly through impacts on the social and ecological environment. This dissertation analyses the impact marijuana policies on local crimes, forest cover change, and on the racial composition of the prison population. My research suggests that local government officials must consider the varying impact each marijuana policy has on the social and ecological environment of the area to ensure that policies maximize potential benefits and minimize negative externalities. The first chapter examines whether medical and recreational marijuana legalization policies effectively induce changes in municipal crime rates by reducing drug crimes and the strain on local law enforcement. I find that medical marijuana legalization has significant reduction in property and violent crime rates from key policies. The second chapter of this paper analyzes the environmental impact of The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (Proposition 64) and Proposition 47. By allowing adults 21 and over to possess and grow specified amounts of marijuana for recreational use and legalizing sales, Proposition 64 decreased the incentive for many to illegally grow in forested areas. Proposition 47 reclassified some marijuana offenses from felony to misdemeanor. Using the Hansen forest cover data on forested areas in California, this chapter provides a look into the impacts of marijuana legalization on the surroundings. I find that municipalities that choose to legalize homegrowing indoors and home growing outdoor policies have increases in forest cover loss. The final section examines the impacts of California Propositions 64 (2016) and 47 (2014) on arrest rates within each county across the state. Using law enforcement reported arrest data from the California Department of Justice in conjunction with administrative government data on marijuana policies, I find heterogenous impacts of recreational policies from Proposition 64 and disproportionate impacts when the race of the arrestee is considered. This shows the importance of examining policy impacts on different populations and not passing broad policy. It also highlights the continued impacts of racial bias in arrests that lead to sustained racial disproportions in our prison systems. While the disparities in racial populations could be a result of disproportionate involvement in crimes, the differences in policy impacts on arrest rates as race changes suggests another driver of racial imbalance. This is an important issue to research as existing bias in law enforcement weakens the integrity of the legal system and its reliability in society.

Author: Matthew Bacon
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000828387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
The policing of drugs is an intriguing, complex, and contentious domain that brings into sharp focus the multifaceted nature of the police role and has farreaching consequences for health, crime, and justice. While research on drugs policing has historically been surprisingly sparse, fragmented, and underdeveloped, the field has recently become a burgeoning area of academic study, influenced by contemporary trends in policing practices, changes in drug policy, and wider social movements. This book makes a much-needed interdisciplinary and international contribution that engages with established and emerging areas of scholarship, advances cutting-edge debates, and sets an agenda for future directions in drugs policing. Drug Law Enforcement, Policing and Harm Reduction is the first edited collection to devote its attention exclusively to drugs policing. It brings together a range of leading scholars to provide a deep and thorough account of the current state of knowledge. In addition to academic analysis, authors also include serving police officers and policymakers, who have influenced how drugs policing is framed and carried out. Together, the contributors draw on a diverse set of empirical studies and theoretical perspectives, with the thread running throughout the book being the concept of harm reduction policing. With accounts from various countries, localities, and contexts, topics covered include the (in)effectiveness and (un)intended consequences of the ‘war on drugs’, attempts to reform drugs policing, and the role of partnerships and policy networks. The broader theme of inequality lies at the heart of this collection. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to academics and students of criminology, public health, and social policy, especially those researching policing, drug policy, and harm reduction. It also offers valuable insights and practical guidance for professionals working in the drugs field.

Author: Kelly Lytle Hernández
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469631199
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

Author: Allison Frankel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Criminal justice, Administration of
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"[The report] finds that supervision -– probation and parole -– drives high numbers of people, disproportionately those who are Black and brown, right back to jail or prison, while in large part failing to help them get needed services and resources. In states examined in the report, people are often incarcerated for violating the rules of their supervision or for low-level crimes, and receive disproportionate punishment following proceedings that fail to adequately protect their fair trial rights."--Publisher website.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309459575
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309142393
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.

Author: Tess Borden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781623134105
Category : Drug abuse and crime
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"The report, "Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States," finds that enforcement of drug possession laws causes extensive and unjustifiable harm to individuals and communities across the country. The long-term consequences can separate families; exclude people from job opportunities, welfare assistance, public housing, and voting; and expose them to discrimination and stigma for a lifetime. While more people are arrested for simple drug possession in the US than for any other crime, mainstream discussions of criminal justice reform rarely question whether drug use should be criminalized at all"--Publisher's description.

Author: United States. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice -- established by President Lyndon Johnson on July 23, 1965 -- addresses the causes of crime and delinquency and recommends how to prevent crime and delinquency and improve law enforcement and the administration of criminal justice. In developing its findings and recommendations, the Commission held three national conferences, conducted five national surveys, held hundreds of meetings, and interviewed tens of thousands of individuals. Separate chapters of this report discuss crime in America, juvenile delinquency, the police, the courts, corrections, organized crime, narcotics and drug abuse, drunkenness offenses, gun control, science and technology, and research as an instrument for reform. Significant data were generated by the Commission's National Survey of Criminal Victims, the first of its kind conducted on such a scope. The survey found that not only do Americans experience far more crime than they report to the police, but they talk about crime and the reports of crime engender such fear among citizens that the basic quality of life of many Americans has eroded. The core conclusion of the Commission, however, is that a significant reduction in crime can be achieved if the Commission's recommendations (some 200) are implemented. The recommendations call for a cooperative attack on crime by the Federal Government, the States, the counties, the cities, civic organizations, religious institutions, business groups, and individual citizens. They propose basic changes in the operations of police, schools, prosecutors, employment agencies, defenders, social workers, prisons, housing authorities, and probation and parole officers.