Pubdate: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA) Copyright: 2008 The Press-Enterprise Company Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html Website: http://www.pe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830 Cited: The Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act http://www.NORAyes.com Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) NO ON 5 California needs a thoughtful, thorough revision of its criminal justice system. Instead, voters in November will face Prop. 5, which would make already-muddled drug laws even more incoherent. Voters should reject that course. Prop. 5, The Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, would expand programs to divert drug offenders to treatment instead of prison or jail. But the measure reaches far beyond drug programs, and voters should be skeptical about its ambitions. Does the state really need a new bureaucracy to oversee parole and rehabilitation efforts? Why should the Board of Parole Hearings have 29 members instead of 17? And why is a provision to ease penalties for marijuana possession buried in this initiative? Such questions illuminate Prop. 5's crucial shortcoming. It would make wide-ranging changes to state law with no consideration of how those provisions fit into an overall state criminal justice policy. The state needs comprehensive reforms of criminal sentencing and parole, for example. But Prop. 5 would provide more of the episodic tinkering that has made the state's sentencing laws incoherent. And fixes to the parole system should derive from an overall vision, not haphazard changes made at the ballot box. The idea of diverting addicts from prison to drug treatment programs has promise, if handled properly. But Prop. 5 ignores the lessons of Prop. 36, the 2000 ballot measure that set up a smaller drug diversion program. The state's watchdog Little Hoover Commission in March pointed out that Prop. 36 suffered from a lack of accountability, along with an inflexibility that constrained its effectiveness. Instead of fixing those flaws, Prop. 5 would expand them. The measure would create a new, three-tiered program for nonviolent drug offenders. The first tier would be even more lenient than Prop. 36, which would become the second tier. The third track would equate to the state's drug courts -- a proven program that couples close supervision with sanctions such as jail time for failures. But this track would only be for people with five or more offenses. Prop. 5 would give offenders many chances to fail before requiring real accountability. And the measure completely fails to address the Little Hoover Commission's central criticism of the state's addiction policies: a disorganized, unaccountable drug treatment system with no focus on results. Building on that shaky foundation asks for failure. The state's legislative analyst says Prop. 5 could cost the state more than $1 billion annually. That cost might be balanced by savings of more than $1 billion annually by diverting people from prison. And the measure might eventually shave $2.5 billion off future prison construction costs by requiring less space. Maybe. But the measure definitely will require the state to spend $150 million in the current fiscal year and $460 million in 2008-09 for drug treatment -- when the state faces a $15.2 billion deficit. And voters should not mistake savings for sensible policy. Just because Prop. 5 might save money does not mean it offers effective reforms. Voters suspicious of long, complex initiatives will find plenty to be skeptical about in Prop. 5. That instinct is correct: Prop. 5 deserves a no vote. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake