By Kayla Garcia-Pebdani and Maeve O’Brien
RIVERSIDE, CA– An Orange County Register opinion piece this last week criticized Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco for blaming legislative and public concerns regarding crime on Proposition 47’s reforms.
The article, authored by Mike Males, a senior research fellow at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, provides recent crime rates from the Dept. of Justice compared to the early 2010s to highlight the impact of “major criminal justice reforms.”
Reports from Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice display a divergence in the correlation between spending on law enforcement and crime solving rates, said Males.
The center said California police are “receiving record high per-capita funding,” yet crime clearance rates have “fallen to historically low levels.”
According to Prop47 FAQs, the measure passed in 2014. Prop. 47 added and amended statutory provisions regarding felony sentencing laws for Theft and Drug possession offenses, resentencing, and reclassification. In November 2016, the updated report narrowed, re-focusing on prison spending, violent and serious offenses, and generating savings invested in preventative and support programs in K-12 schools.
Riverside County Sheriff Bianco claims Proposition 47 is a “twisted, sick experiment” yielding to today’s “public safety…crisis,” as the Op-Ed reports. However, the Op-Ed asserts the Sheriff’s continuous criticism falls short when considering the Department’s history of increased funding and decreased crime-solving rates.
Males notes that despite the department’s budget of roughly half a billion dollars in 2022 and increased personnel of nearly 2,000, solved rates for felony violent and property crimes fall just below 10 percent, at 8.3 percent less than half of its 1990 solve rate and California’s statewide rates of 15.9 percent.
As previously reported by The Orange County Register, statewide trends indicate law enforcement jurisdictions spend on average 52 percent more, while solved crime rates have fallen from 22.3 percent in 1990 to 13.2 percent in 2022, said the author.
With increased spending and employment, the Riverside County Sheriff’s arrests and solve rates for violent and property felonies remain below the state’s average, and the fifth worst among 57 sheriff departments statewide, author Miles Males reported.
