CALIFORNIA'S PROPOSITION 36: A SUCCESS RIPE FOR REFINEMENT AND REPLICATION

Abstract

On November 7, 2000, California voters mandated that firstor secondtime nonviolent drug possession offenders be offered drug treatment rather than incarceration. The voters, by a margin of 61%, provided for $660 million dollars over five and half years to fund drug treatment, probation, and ancillary services for such offenders. This mandate was accomplished through the passage of Proposition 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000. On the day Proposition 36 passed, the situation confronting Californians who misuse drugs had reached a level of crisis. During the two decades preceding the passage of Proposition 36, the nation as a whole had experienced a profound increase in the rates of incarceration for drug use, with California leading the way. In 1980, only 7.5 of every 100,000 Californian’s were imprisoned for drug-related crimes, comfortably below the national average. Just 20 years later, in 2000, 130.5 per 100,000 Californian’s were imprisoned for drugs, an increase of over 1600%, well above the national average (Males et. al., 2002). During this same period, the percentage of people imprisoned for drugs who were guilty of mere possession jumped from 35.2% to 54.4%, and in 1999 alone, 6,191 Californian’s (11% of all people sent to prison) were imprisoned for possession of a small amount of drugs with no other current offenses and no prior serious or violent offenses (Males et al., 2002). These dramatic increases in incarceration were the product of changes in drug policy, not changes in drug use prevalence (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2002). At the same time that legislatures were ratcheting up the sentences for drug possession offenses and funding more and more prisons, millions of Americans lacked access to drug and alcohol treatment, psychiatric care, housing and other crucial services. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, over 800,000 Californians needed but did