“An Absolute Revolving Door”

• Author: Christine Gardiner
• Published date: 01 September 2012
• Date: 01 September 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0887403411416557
• Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.

Criminal Justice Policy Review

23(3) 275 –303

© 2012 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0887403411416557

http://cjp.sagepub.com

416557CJP23310.1177/08874034114165

57GardinerCriminal Justice Policy Review

1California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Christine Gardiner, Division of Politics, Administration, and Justice, California State University,

800 N. State College Blvd., PO Box 6848, Fullerton, CA 92834, USA

Email: CGardiner@fullerton.edu

“An Absolute Revolving

Door”: An Evaluation of

Police Perception and

Response to Proposition 36

Christine Gardiner1

Abstract

Proposition 36 (aka SACPA) radically changed how the criminal justice system in

California deals with drug offenders—from a crime control model to an addiction-

treatment model. Although it was anticipated that the diversion-to-treatment law

would have a significant impact on drug offenders, courts, and corrections in the state

of California, it was not anticipated to have a noticeable effect on law enforcement.

Contrary to expectations, the current study found very high levels of frustration

among law enforcement officers. The frustration altered the way some officers

exercised discretion and led many to actively circumvent the legislation. Specifically,

officers reported that they now seek out additional charges to disqualify offenders

from being diverted through Proposition 36, and they are less likely to arrest offenders

for being under the influence. These results are consistent with findings from other

street-level bureaucracy studies of police response to new policies and programs.

Keywords

Proposition 36, street-level bureaucracy, police discretion, diversion-to-treatment,

SACPA, drug policy

One response to the increasingly punitive sentences that landed large numbers of drug

offenders in jails and prisons has been the expansion of diversion programs in which

substance abuse treatment is substituted for incarceration. Drug courts, for example,

were created in 1989 as a direct response to system capacity issues that arose with the

Articles

276Criminal Justice Policy Review23(3)

deluge of drug offenders that came through the Florida court system in the 1980s

(Goldkamp, White, & Robinson, 2001). Although pretrial drug diversion programs

have existed for at least 35 years (Klein, 1976; Marlowe, 2003), they traditionally have

been reserved for first-time drug offenders without a prior criminal history. California’s

PC1000 and Michigan’s MCL 333.7411 are two examples.

Beginning with the passage of Arizona’s Proposition 200 in 1996 and California’s

Proposition 36 (Prop36) in 2000, a new breed of drug offender diversion laws began

to emerge in the United States. Through 2004, legislators and citizens in more than

21 states had added legislation requiring the diversion of drug offenders into treatment

(VanderWaal, Chriqui, Bishop, McBride, & Longshore, 2006). Two issues make some

of these diversion-to-treatment policies different from their predecessors: (a) several

are applied universally, not selectively, and, for this reason, (b) they mark a significant

change in drug offender sentencing philosophy. The diversion-to-treatment laws in at

least five states (Arizona, California, Kansas, Maryland, Washington) mandate, with

some stipulations, that all offenders convicted of qualifying offenses be sentenced to

treatment instead of incarceration (Rinaldo & Kelly-Thomas, 2005; VanderWaal et al.,

2006). Treatment is not reserved for a small number of motivated offenders; rather it

is offered to every offender convicted of a low-level drug crime (regardless of motivation-

to-change) who is not disqualified by prior criminal history or other concurrent offenses.

Depending on statutory language, these laws have the potential to be very wide reachi ng.

For example, in California, Prop36 diverts approximately 36,000 offenders annually

from jail and prison (Longshore et al., 2004).

These treatment in lieu of incarceration (aka diversion-to-treatment) policies dra-

matically alter how criminal justice systems react to drug offenders. Such laws shift

the focus of criminal justice policy from crime-control to addiction-treatment. Despite

the research-verified benefits of substance abuse treatment for drug-using offenders

(e.g., reductions in drug use and criminal activity; California Legislative Analyst’s

Office, 1999); these diversion-to-treatment laws can intensify the tensions between the

various practitioners at the nexus of drug addiction and criminal behavior (treatment

providers and criminal justice professionals; Goetz & Mitchell, 2006). The street-level

bureaucrats who must implement these new policies often find themselves in opposi-

tion of the new laws. This was certainly the case in California, as Prop36 was written

by drug reformers and opposed by criminal justice practitioners.

California’s Prop36 is a notable example of a diversion-to-treatment policy and

represents a unique opportunity to examine how such universally applied drug laws

play out on the ground level by criminal justice professionals and to identify the intended

and unintended consequences on agencies and actors within the criminal justice sys-

tem. As Welsh and Pontell (1991) note, “there is great potential for understanding

systems operations and outcomes in those contexts where the surrounding political

environment has mandated departures from normal criminal justice operations” (p. 75).

Prop36 represents just such a “mandated departure” context. It is an ideal policy to ana-

lyze because, like many of the new treatment-in-lieu-of incarceration laws, the potential