To the editor: UC San Francisco professor Meghan Morris is asking voters to reject a tough-on-crime ballot measure because it would overcrowd prisons.
Interestingly, on April 30 you published an op-ed calling on California to close underutilized prisons to save money. Give me a break.
A high prison population is the natural result of a high crime rate. We should do the hard work of getting people to commit less crime.
The perverse idea of treating the prison population as a “crisis” in itself and trying to solve it by releasing people from prison or being more lenient on certain crimes has led us to the current disaster, where some feel emboldened to commit acts of massive destruction. catch robberies in our state with few consequences.
Alan Osprey, Laguna Beach
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To the editor: I have spent my life watching the “punish, punish, punish” crowd repeatedly increase criminal penalties and enact laws designed to harm people after they have served their time.
The result has been an entirely predictable disaster: huge swathes of the population imprisoned, recidivism because people cannot find work or housing, and uncontrolled spending on incarceration.
Meanwhile, sociologists have conducted study after study showing that there are better ways to reduce crime: ways that are cheaper, more effective, and more humane. But reactionaries refuse to acknowledge the science and instead insist that the only acceptable approach is even more cruelty toward criminals.
No wonder we are failing. I despair of ever living to see a sensible approach to crime.
Geoff Kuenning, Claremont
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To the editor: As someone who has spent two years working with a family member struggling with addiction and surviving a fentanyl overdose, I find Morris's op-ed appalling.
It is crucial to focus on the facts and content of the ballot measure itself. The measure will significantly increase access to treatment with a simple option: obtain the necessary treatment and, once the program ends, the records will be deleted.
Letting people die from drug overdoses on our streets is inhumane. Proposition 47 has undermined the benefits of drug courts, so we must incentivize and encourage more people with serious addictions to seek treatment.
This measure will make a big difference in getting people into treatment.
Joanne Genis, Chino Hills
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To the editor: Once again, The Times has published an article claiming that Proposition 47, passed in 2014, “made shoplifting under $950 a misdemeanor.”
The Legislature did that in 2010 in a bill signed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, AB 2372, and Proposition 47 affirmed it and included other types of theft. AB 2372 was enacted simply to keep the law in place in light of inflation. If no adjustment for inflation were ever made, then a theft of $50 would be a felony in California, as it was in 1872.
Furthermore, even after AB 2372, the value at which a theft becomes a felony remains lower in California than in 40 other states (it is $2,500 in Texas). Perhaps the rush to change Proposition 47 would be less furious if the facts were stated correctly.
John Hamilton Scott, Sherman Oaks
