Here’s a potentially game-changing fact that has been completely absent from the virulent debate over Proposition 36 (the ballot measure that could roll back many of Proposition 47’s criminal justice reforms): California has not gotten softer on crime during the reform era, but tougher.
An arrested person in California has considerably higher odds of being incarcerated today (20.2%) than in 2013 (18.5%), the year before Proposition 47 passed, or in 2010 (17.7%), before reforms began. This is clear from California’s Department of Justice, local jail, and state prison statistics.
Nor are district attorneys and judges in liberal counties (the generally urban areas that vote Democratic) more lenient; they are likelier to incarcerate arrested individuals more than DAs and judges in conservative areas (those that consistently vote Republican). Both FBI and Major Cities (Police) Chiefs’ Association tabulations show reported crime in California’s largest cities fell to record low levels in the first half of 2024.
So, are Californians mistaken to believe that many individuals are “getting away with crime,” particularly retail theft?
No. But everyone is wrong about why that is.
The reason is that, despite being given more resources, law enforcement across California is solving vastly fewer crimes today than in the past. That means DAs (liberal and conservative alike) have far fewer arrested persons to prosecute.
While DAs and courts have gotten tougher, police and sheriff agencies have gotten much softer on crime. Law enforcement’s “crime clearance” (solving) rate has plummeted by over half since 1990.
On average, each sworn officer arrests nearly 70% fewer people today than officers did 30 years ago. In 1990, the average officer arrested 33 people; in 2010,19; in 2023, just 10. Per-officer arrests plummeted even though California’s crime decline has left officers with hundreds of thousands fewer reported crimes annually to investigate. Reforms are not responsible for the growing failure of police to solve crimes. Law enforcement clearance rates began plunging 20 years before California’s recent reforms began in 2010.
It’s a mystery why law enforcement efficiency has fallen so drastically even amid large increases in funding and fewer crimes to solve. Californians spend $230 more per person annually on law enforcement in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars today than in 1990.
What is not a mystery: the reason the public believes people are getting away with crime, particularly retail shoplifting and “smash and grab” car-burglary thefts. Police clearance rates fell from 21% of larceny/theft crimes solved in 1990 to 15% in 2013 and just 8% today.
A comparison of liberal San Francisco with conservative Kern County, whose population is only slightly larger, illustrates the confusion. In 2023, Kern County had 33% more violent crimes, including 39% more homicides, 233% more felony assaults, 38% more shopliftings, 4% more commercial burglaries, 18% more vehicle thefts, and nearly three times more gun murders. San Francisco, in turn, had more robberies, residential burglaries, overdose deaths, and “smash and grab” thefts from vehicles.
On balance, then, Kern County has a much worse problem with serious crime, with an especially bad trend toward more violent crime (up 64% over the last decade) while violent crime fell in San Francisco (down 16%). Further, Kern reports a substantially worse retail theft rate (shopliftings plus non-residential burglaries) than does San Francisco.
So, why is San Francisco relentlessly pilloried statewide and nationally as suffering an unheard-of crime scourge due to its “liberal” district attorneys and policies, while “conservative” Kern County is given a free pass? Kern County’s conservative DA talks tough on crime, which appears to immunize her against criticism for presiding over higher violence and retail-theft crime rates.
This double standard explains why the debate over Proposition 36 is so seriously misdirected. The problem is not justice reforms. Kern County law enforcement agencies, which are subject to the same state laws, are twice as effective in making arrests for reported offenses than is the San Francisco Police Department.
That is, due solely to differences in law enforcement crime-solving efficiency – not DA politics, attitudes toward crime, or polices – many fewer people “get away with crime” in Kern County than in San Francisco. The final irony: Kern County’s higher arrest and incarceration rates do not make its residents safer from violent crimes, shootings, or even shoplifting compared to San Francisco’s approach.
Proposition 36 deserves a “no” vote. Instead, Californians should demand that police explain their falling crime-solving rates before giving more money and officers to departments that already have failed to reduce crime amid ever-ballooning budgets. Crime is currently at near-record low levels as reforms help prosecutors focus more efficiently on serious offenses rather than petty ones. California needs to analyze these law enforcement failures, not rush to blame justice reforms for the highly visible crime problems that remain.
Mike Males is senior research fellow at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.