The Vote Is In: It’s Time to Replace “Tough-on-Crime” with “Jobs-not-Jails”

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/vote-its-time-replace-tough-crime-jobs-not-jails



This week, most election coverage has focused on who to blame for the the huge losses suffered by Democrats and what the implications are for the gains made by Republicans, but one of the most significant moments of the midterms happened in California—the passage of Proposition 47.

The proposition, which won with 58% of the vote, reclassifies nonviolent crimes like drug possession and petty theft as misdemeanors instead of felonies and dedicates the savings on imprisonment towards schools, victim services, and mental health and drug treatment.

This proposition is an example of the kind of “justice reinvestment” initiative that we need nationwide in order to reallocate resources away from mass incarceration and toward education and healthcare. For a long time, California voters have supported the “tough-on-crime” movement, by passing propositions like the three strikes law in 1994. But now, voters are sending the message that being “tough-on-crime” isn’t working, and the rest of the country should follow California’s example.

The “War on Crime” mantra has been in play for decades. After introducing the “War on Poverty” in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Crime” just one year later that would ultimately overshadow and outpace the war on poverty. Fifty years later, national poverty rates have returned to 1964 levels, income inequality has intensified, and the incarceration rate has skyrocketed with little relationship to crime rates. Despite being the world’s leading incarcerator, the United States is less safe than similarly situated countries.