Proposition 6 Explained – “The Safe Neighborhoods Act” is an Unsafe Fiscal Disaster

Proposition 6 asks voters to approve the so-called “Safe Neighborhoods Act” and spend an additional $1 billion annually on crime-prevention programs.There are no bonds for this program, the money would come from the state’s existing budget. Funds from education, health care, senior programs and fire protection would be reallocated to fund Prop. 6 programs, all of which have already been proven not to work. In fact, the Justice Department says that Prop. 6 would likely increase crime.

Sounds ridiculous, right?. It is. But don’t be surprised. Like Prop. 9, Prop. 6 is also funded by billionaire Dr. Henry Nicholas, the guy who is currently awaiting trial on federal charges of drug trafficking and fraud.  The architect of the bill itself is State Senator George Runner, whose re-election campaigns are funded by local-level law enforcement associations.

One of the main points of Prop. 6 is that it provides block grants for local law enforcement for programs like “Citizen Options for Public Safety” (COPS). What does the COPS program do? According to one local law enforcement agency,  it “provides supplemental funding for cities and counties and local law enforcement services in order to enhance public safety.”

Now you’re thinking, “I still doesn’t know what the COPS program does.” You’re not alone. Nobody knows what it does, that’s why it was deleted from the new state budget, that’s why the non-partisan state Legislative Analyst said the COPS program has “no definable goals” and “no identifiable results.” In other words, it was free money for local police departments that they could spend however they wanted without accounting for it to anyone. Prop. 6 puts the discredited COPS program back into the budget.

Why? Because local law enforcement agencies are a major backer of State. Sen George Runner who wrote Prop. 6. They want their slush funds back! Hey, we here at Johnny California are all for local enforcement getting more money, but they need to explain what they’re doing with it. Even crazier, Prop. 6 tries justify the slush fund expenditure by cutting funding for community mental health and drug rehabilitation programs for at-risk youth and non-violent drug offenders. Which, of course, will contribute to an increase in crime.

Then there’s the problem of our overcrowded prisons, a problem which Prop. 6 will only make worse. Right now, California prisons are at over 200% of capacity. Conditions are so dire that a federal court demanded that California spend $8 billion to improve inmate health care or face a federal takeover of the state prison system. When asked where the funding would come from, Attorney General Jerry Brown told the Los Angeles Times, “if you take this money, you may take it from children, you may take it from the mentally ill, you may take it from the elderly.”

Prop. 6 makes the overcrowding worse by creating 30 new offenses and demands that inmates serve longer sentences. But it does nothing to fund the prison overcrowding problem and does nothing to offset the prison health care crisis.

Then there’s the problem with juvenile offenders. The law would require children, as young as 14, to be treated as adults for a long list of crimes, many of which are non-violent.A U.S. Department of Justice report concluded that putting non-violent young children into the adult system, where the focus is on punishment and not rehabilitation, is more likely to turn children into repeat offenders, ultimately raising the crime rate.

Prop. 6 is also notable for pissing off every newspaper in the state. Of all the ballot propositions, nothing has raised the ire of all the major editorial pages more than Prop. 6. Even The New York Times wrote about it, calling it “Fiscal Suicide”, The LA Times said it was a “confused beast escaped from another decade” that will “bring California to the brink of insolvency”, The OC Register called it “fear mongering” and “little more than a massive funding and power grab by law enforcement agencies”; the San Francisco Chronicle called it a “budget buster”, the San Jose Mercury News called it “the worst case of ballot box budgeting.”

The Johnny California Editorial Board joins these other news organizations by declaring Prop. 6 to be “a steaming pile of crap” and recommending a NO vote.