Impact of defelonizing drug possession on recidivism

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12489
• Author: Mia Bird,Ryken Grattet,Viet Nguyen
• Date: 01 May 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12489

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

CRIME CONTROL AND RECIDIVISM

Impact of defelonizing drug possession on recidivism

Mia Bird1Viet Nguyen2Ryken Grattet3

1University of California—Berkeley

2University of Pennsylvania

3University of California—Davis

Correspondence

RykenGrattet, Department of Sociology,

Universityof California—Davis, One Shields

Avenue,Davis, CA 95616.

Email:r tgrattet@ucdavis.edu

Thisresearch was made possible by the coop-

erationof t he CaliforniaDepar tment of Justice,

the CaliforniaState Sher iffsAssociation, Chief

ProbationOfficers of California, the California

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,

the Board of State and Community Corrections,

anddat a providersin twelve California coun-

ties.We also acknowledget he Public Policy

Instituteof California for supporting the collec-

tionof t he data used in this research. Anyer rors

aret he responsibility of the authors. The authors

haveno conflicts of interest.

Research Summary: California’s Proposition 47 (Prop

47), passed in November 2014, sought to scale back pun-

ishment for selected drug and property offenses, making

them misdemeanors rather than felonies. Although others

have examined the impacts of Proposition 47 on crime

rates, here we examine the impacts on a range of recidivism

outcomes specifically for individuals convicted for drug

possession offenses. We focus on the defelonization of

drug possession because nationally evidence suggests

that public and policy maker sympathy for reducing

incarceration use is greatest for nonviolent drug offenders.

Thus, the greatest relevance of Proposition 47 to the nation

lies in its strategy of defelonizing drug possession. We

draw on an ongoing data collection effort on criminal

justice populations in 12 California counties and link these

data to rearrest and reconviction data from county and

state-level sources. We find people who received drug

possession convictions after Prop 47 had lower overall

rearrest and reconviction rates than people with compara-

ble convictions and criminal histories released prior to the

proposition. Overall reductions in recidivism rates for Prop

47 drug offenders were driven by reductions in rearrest and

reconviction for drug possession offenses. These findings

are robust to a variety of specifications and sensitivity

analyses. When we complicate the narrative of declines

in nonviolent recidivism, however, we find evidence of a

2.8-percentage-point increase in rearrest for crimes against

Criminology & Public Policy. 2020;19:591–616. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2020 American Society of Criminology 591

592 BIRD ET AL.

persons, mainly assaults and domestic violence. Reconvic-

tion rates for crimes against persons for drug possession

offenders also increased by 1.1 percentage points.

Policy Implications: These findings add to the growing

body of evidence that a targeted reform like Prop 47 does

not result in increases in most measures of reoffending

for people convicted of drug possession. Although we

cannot rule out that the declines we observe in rearrest and

reconviction are the result of behavioral change among

offenders, it seems likely that those declines are partly,

perhaps mostly, the result of changing decision-making

among law enforcement and prosecutors. Converting drug

possession to be chargeable only as a misdemeanor has

significantly reduced the likelihood individuals convicted

of drug possession will return to jail or prison once they

have been released and therefore stemmed some of the

flow of people with such offenses through the system.

Evidence from California, however, shows that there can

be small increases in crimes against persons, which pro-

vides a cautionary note and points to the need to consider

interventions that do not involve criminal justice responses

in response to the negative aspects of drug use. Our con-

clusion discusses considerations in applying our findings

to other states that have defelonized drug possession.

KEYWORDS

California, correctional reform, prison downsizing, recidivism

There are multiple policy pathways for reducing reliance on jail and prison incarceration (Grattet &

Bird, 2018). One group of reforms target “back-end” policies that reduce sentence lengths, introduce

greater use of indeterminate sentences, or constrain the use of revocations (Tonry, 2014). Another

group focuses on “front-end” policies that affect the flow into custody by reducing punishments,

downgrading certain offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, legalization of some types of drugs, and

increasing the use of noncustodial sanctions like diversion or probation (Turner et al., 2015). California

has undertaken a wide range of both front-end and back-end reforms, and a small research literature is

now emerging on the impacts of these policy changes (Bird & Grattet, 2014; Bird, Lofstrom, Martin,

Raphael, & Nguyen, 2018; Bird, Tafoya, Grattet, & Nguyen, 2016; Lofstrom & Raphael, 2013). One

of the more ambitious and controversial front-end reforms is California’s Proposition 47 (also known

as “the Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative” or “Prop 47”), which downgraded a range of

drug and property offenses to misdemeanors. A portion of Prop 47 is particularly noteworthy because

it targets a sympathetic and politically viable group—nonviolent drug offenders. As an approach to