Can We Downsize

Our Prisons and Jails Without

Compromising Public Safety?:
Findings from
California’s Criminal Justice Reforms

Charis E. Kubrin
Department of Criminology, Law & Society
University of California, Irvine
2006: 173,000
Max: 79,000
 AB 109 Realignment

• Realign from state to local

(county) jurisdictions
responsibilities for lower-level
nonviolent offenders and
parolees (triple nons)

• County-level discretion in
spending Realignment dollars
(e.g., jail, community
supervision, electronic
monitoring)

• Each county (n=58) drafted

Realignment plan
October 2011: Realignment Begins

• Dire predictions Realignment

would cause crime wave and

recidivism rates would skyrocket

• Concerns AB 109 would lead to

massive jail expansion and

58 “mini-Platas””
Evaluation of Realignment?

Despite concerns, there was…

• No state funding set aside to evaluate Realignment’s impact

• No organization responsible for assessing Realignment's costs

and benefits across state

• Despite being “The biggest criminal justice experiment

ever conducted in America” (Petersilia 2012)
Realigning California Corrections:
Legacies of the Past, the Great Experiment and
Trajectories for the Future

Two-day workshop hosted at UCI (October 2014):

• Funding from National Science Foundation and

UC Office of the President
Theme One: Origins of the Crisis
What were the historical roots of the crisis that led California
to find itself before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata?
Theme Two:
Diffusion and Translation of Law and Policy Reform

How has the Brown v. Plata ruling and subsequent Realignment legislation
been translated across the state?
Theme Three:
Effects of Realignment on the Criminal Justice System

Did Realignment cause

crime and recidivism rates to rise?
Theme Four: Future of Decarceration

More broadly, what is the role of the judiciary and prison litigation
in prison reform nationally?

Can California’s experiment be exported to other states facing

similar pressures to downsize their prisons?
“The Great Experiment:
Realigning Criminal Justice in California and Beyond”

• Special issue of the

Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science

• First systematic, scientific analysis

of Realignment
Impact on Crime

• Lofstrom and Raphael (2016)

• Study of statewide crime trends pre- and post-Realignment

(October 2010-May 2013)

Lofstrom, Magnus and Steven Raphael (2016) “Incarceration and Crime: Evidence from California’s Public Safety Realignment,”
664 ANNALS 196-221.
Cost Benefit Analysis

• One year served in prison:

o Prevents 1.2 auto thefts

o Saves ~$12,000 in crime-related costs

• Cost of that one year in prison for state: $51,889 (2013)

Key Points

• At statewide level, prison-crime effects are small

• Criminogenic consequences of Realignment have been modest

Impact on Recidivism

• Bird and Grattet (2016)

• County-level examination of recidivism

• Approaches to Realignment:
o Enforcement-focused counties:
allocated more funds to sheriff, jail beds, law enforcement

o Reentry-focused counties: allocated more funds to programs,

services

Bird, Mia and Ryken Grattet (2016) “Realignment and Recidivism,” 664 ANNALS 176-196.
County Approach & Recidivism Outcomes

• Counties that invested in offender reentry and rehabilitation

had better performance in terms of recidivism

o Felony re-arrest rate ~4% greater for offenders

released to enforcement-focused counties than
reentry-focused counties
Prop 47

 Reduced certain drug possession felonies to misdemeanors

 Required misdemeanor sentencing for crimes including:

o Shoplifting
o Petty theft

o Receiving stolen property

o Forgery
o Fraud

o Writing a bad check

* where value of stolen property or check does not exceed $950

Overview of Study

• Examine impact of Prop 47 on crime in year following its

implementation (2015)

• Identify Prop 47’s causal effect on violent and property

crime statewide

o Murder, Rape, Robbery, Assault, Burglary, Larceny,

Auto-Theft

• Created state-level panel dataset containing UCR Part I

offenses from 1970-2015
Methodology

• Natural experiment / quasi-experimental design

• Synthetic Control Group Design

• Comparison unit that approximates CA had it not enacted Prop 47

o California vs. “Counterfactual California” / “Synthetic California”

o Causal effect of Prop 47 = change in the distance between

two time series that emerges following intervention

• Confidence in findings predicated on quality of comparison unit

(Synthetic California)
Synthetic California

• Weighted combination of donor pool states that

optimally fits CA’s crime trends from 1970-2014
(pre-intervention period) (N=44 years)

• Donor pool states = states which did not experience

Prop 47 intervention

o All remaining states eligible

o Create Synthetic California for each crime type

Conclusion

• No evidence of statistically significant robust increase for any

UCR Part 1 Index Crimes in year following Prop 47’s enactment

• Caveats and Further Considerations:

o Single post-intervention observation- are estimated effects
permanent, temporary, accruing, or decaying?

o Some concerned about increasing drug offenses and other

social ills (e.g., homelessness), which we do not have data for

o Statewide analysis may mask important variation at local level

(e.g., counties, cities or communities)

• We can downsize our prisons without risking public safety!

Barriers to Academic / Journalist Relationships

Warring Timelines
o Journalists on perpetual deadline
o Academics have many milestones

Journalists Want a Neat Soundbite

o Social Science research is highly nuanced

The Academic Dilemma

o We want our work to make a difference, but…
 No training
 Institutional mindset
o Little to no incentivizing for media coverage
 How Can Academics
and Journalists
Work Better Together?

Charis Kubrin, PhD

ckubrin@uci.edu