There’s been a lot of reporting recently on the rise in gun-related homicides in California, and elected officials and other leaders are right to be paying attention. Even as overall crime has remained historically low, the same communities that have long experienced high levels of concentrated violence are seeing an uptick in gun violence, while local news is saturated with coverage of crime.
But what’s been lost in the mix is that California voters’ underlying values of how to fix crime have fundamentally shifted over the last few decades — and the current situation has not shaken voters’ beliefs. We no longer live in an era where calls for drastic increases in imprisonment as the one-size-fits-all crime solution are the norm. Instead, voters today firmly believe the “lock ‘em up and throw away the key approach” was a failure.
Californians overwhelmingly believe the state is already going in the right direction: tackling mental health and prioritizing crime prevention and rehabilitation over more wasteful spending on bloated and ineffective prisons.
A June public opinion survey confirms that Californians are worried about crime. It also confirms that voters, by overwhelming majorities, do not want a return to the incarceration-first approach of the past that ballooned prison populations and failed to stop cycles of crime.
The survey found that most California voters associate recent crime with diminished levels of stability in people’s lives, especially the disruptions associated with COVID-19. The top three causes of crime that voters identified were, in order, untreated mental illness, the rising cost of living and, finally, increased poverty and homelessness.
Consequently, voters want safety solutions that address the drivers of crime, rather than responding after it occurs. Respondents to the survey were twice as likely to favor rehabilitation, mental health treatment and drug treatment as the best responses to crime, rather than more punishment through incarceration.
Among the survey’s most striking findings were the extremely high levels of support—across demographic and partisan lines—for specific prevention and rehabilitation strategies. For example, an emphatic 81 percent of respondents endorsed increasing the number of community-based violence prevention workers who help prevent violence in the first place. Similarly, 85 percent support expanding trauma recovery centers that help victims of violent crime stabilize their lives, recover through mental health treatment and offer assistance in navigating the justice system. Working to improve trust between police and communities to reduce misconduct and solve more unsolved crimes was also a priority, supported by 87 percent of respondents.
Nevertheless, there are those who would disregard this broad-based enthusiasm. Most notably, some Los Angeles-area police and prosecutors, the state’s prison guard union and a handful of politicians are using voters’ concerns to revive incarceration-first strategies that voters repeatedly buried over the past decade for being too expensive and ineffective. Their most conspicuous efforts are the ballot initiatives aimed at recalling the governor and reform-minded district attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Instead of revisiting failed policies of the past, California’s leaders should be exploring tactics that can realize their constituents’ preferences for prevention. A great place to start is to invest—both from the state’s budget and with federal aid, like American Rescue Plan funds—in community-based safety solutions that have long been a lifeline to our state’s neighborhoods and residents.
Community-based domestic violence shelters, mental health clinics, substance use counselors, reentry programs, job skills training and violence intervention initiatives have worked mightily for years—with scarce funding support—to fill the gap in services in our state’s most underserved communities. They enjoy high levels of trust as a result, and are well positioned to make a positive impact. But the pandemic revealed both how essential these groups are in meeting local needs, and that they have been under-resourced. Faced with the coronavirus and resulting social distancing requirements, many curtailed their services—likely adding to the stressors contributing to the recent increase in violence.
Now is not the time to resuscitate failed policies of the past. Community-based organizations, many of which are led by survivors of crime or people living with past convictions, have provided essential support within communities that experience high rates of crime and violence.If officials throughout the state listen to voters, we must stay the course and create real safety through investments in prevention and organizations that provide community-based safety. They offer not only the most effective and promising strategies for achieving real shared safety, but it is also what voters want.
Tinisch Hollins is executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice. A native of San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters point, she is a survivor of violent crime, having lost two brothers to gun violence.
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August 20, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Voters are clear on what the drivers of crime are and how to address them - OCRegister
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