California voters overwhelmingly passed the Three Strikes initiative in 1994 based on the promise that it would take repeat violent offenders off the streets.

But now, more than fifteen years after the initiative’s passage, we have the benefit of facts to help us understand the true impact of Three Strikes.

Most Californians already know that in the wake of Three Strikes the cost of corrections has soared. Our state prison budget is now so high that California spends as much on prisons as we do on higher education.

But many Californians are surprised to learn that, under Three Strikes, Curtis Wilkerson of Los Angeles was sentenced to life for petty theft of a pair of socks; that Shane Taylor of Tulare was sentenced to life for simple possession of 0.1 gram of methamphetamine; or that Greg Taylor of Los Angeles was sentenced to life for attempting to break into a soup kitchen to get something to eat.

In fact, the majority of those put away for life under Three Strikes – over 4,000 people total – committed a minor, non-violent third strike. These non-violent third strikers will, according to the California state auditor, cost the state at least $4.8 billion over the next 25 years – almost $200 million per year.

The people named above have an advantage that the vast majority of three strikers do not — they are all clients of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School’s Mills Legal Clinic. Under the direction of Project co-founder Michael Romano, Stanford law students have helped get a dozen non-violent third strikers released from prison after having their sentences reduced.

They are not being released because they are innocent. As Romano said on the Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast,

“Our clients are, in almost every circumstance, absolutely guilty. We’re not going into court and saying that they didn’t do it. What we’re saying is that the punishment that they received for this petty crime is disproportionate.”

This disproportionate punishment is unjust, and it is bankrupting our state. We are wasting precious resources to unnecessarily incarcerate minor offenders who pose little threat to society for huge periods of time – and draining resources away from the law enforcement agencies, community organizations and schools that can truly prevent crime and keep us safe.

Simply put, it is time to reform Three Strikes – so that it is focused on the serious and violent repeat offenders we all agree society must be protected from. Because Three Strikes was passed by a voter initiative, it can only be changed by initiative. In the past, Three Strikes was viewed as untouchable. But now, with the state facing fiscal catastrophe, and Romano and his students bringing attention to the unjust extremes of the law with each new client that gets released, there is momentum for change.

Romano thinks that there is another ingredient necessary for successful reform: political leadership. He says that “with a few notable exceptions, there has been very little leadership on this issue from our elected law enforcement leaders.”

Now is the time to show the leadership what it will take to return to sensible, cost-effective and fair criminal justice polices in California.

David Onek is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, former Commissioner on the San Francisco Police Commission and candidate for San Francisco District Attorney. You can listen to Onek’s recent interview with Romano on the Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast.

After spending my career working to identify and implement the most effective public safety strategies, I have seen one constant – the community is safest when the police and prosecutors earn and keep the public’s trust.

That’s why I read with real concern that the San Francisco District Attorney’s office would not produce reports related to officer-involved shootings pursuant to a recent public records request from NPR-affiliate KALW.

As a former Police Commissioner, I have been briefed in closed session on the details of officer-involved shootings. But the public knows very little about these incidents. My fellow Commissioners and I often heard complaints from community members about how little public information was released about officer-involved shootings. This lack of transparency breeds distrust.

In all officer-involved shootings, the DA’s office conducts an independent review to determine if there is criminal liability. If such liability is found, the DA presses charges, which are public. But when the DA determines that there is no liability, it is equally important that the DA publicly explain the reasons for its decision.

As such, the District Attorney’s office should issue a very detailed report on every officer-involved shooting in which it does not file charges and should make the report publicly available on its website. The report should detail the facts, the law and the reasons for the decision not to file charges.

This kind of complete transparency will make the job of our police and prosecutors much easier by building trust between law enforcement and the community – making it more likely that community members will work in partnership with police and prosecutors, and that victims and witnesses will come forward to testify.

San Francisco is lucky that we are served by rank and file police officers who are second to none. Publishing detailed reports that clear officers when they acted within the law can dispel public misconceptions about what actually happened.

Of course, officers’ privacy rights need to be respected and investigations cannot be compromised. But once an investigation is complete, and an officer has been cleared, it is imperative that the District Attorney’s office share its findings with the public.

This is the standard that is already being applied in communities throughout California. The District Attorney’s office in San Diego, hardly a bastion of liberalism, actually lists these cases on its website. Many other counties – including Los Angeles, Orange and Fresno – also make them matters of public record and available on request.

Building trust with the community is the key to enhancing public safety. Let’s not violate that trust by refusing to release documents that the public has the right to see.

David Onek is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, former Commissioner on the San Francisco Police Commission and candidate for San Francisco District Attorney.

California will release an unprecedented number of prisoners back to their communities in the coming year, prodded by both the state budget crisis and the federal courts.

But those returning will be far less prepared to successfully re-enter society – due to severe cuts to rehabilitation programs in prison – and will be returning to counties that are far less prepared to assist them – due to massive budget deficits at the county level.

Many are concerned that this will lead to an increase in California’s already astronomical recidivism rate of 70%, costing the state even more in corrections spending and leading to further victimization in our communities.

What to do?

A new report by the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice (BCCJ) points to a proven solution that will decrease recidivism and enhance public safety with significant cost savings to the state: increasing employment opportunities for people with prior convictions.

As BCCJ’s Founding Executive Director, I was privileged to convene the wide-ranging project advisory board that developed the report’s timely recommendations. The group consisted of an extremely diverse group of “unlikely allies” – with representatives from law enforcement, advocacy groups, employers, and other stakeholders from across the political spectrum and from all corners of the state. As advisory board member and East Palo Alto Police Chief Ron Davis recently said: “It was just an outstanding group, and it opened my eyes: it really showed me that even with the diverse group that was there, law enforcement to prosecutors to advocates for the formerly incarcerated, how closely aligned we were.”

The BCCJ report points to solutions as simple as providing a California ID card to everyone leaving prison – a prerequisite for applying for most jobs. This low-cost measure has been passed by the legislature but was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Governor-Elect Jerry Brown would be wise to call for and sign a new bill.

Other solutions do cost some money in the short run – but save many times that in the long run. Investing in prison vocational education programs has proven to save money: the Washington State Institute for Public Policy found that every dollar invested netted nearly twelve dollars in return. But California has gone in the opposite direction, cutting vocational education and other rehabilitation programs in prison by $250 million – close to half of the total rehabilitation budget. Governor-Elect Brown has said he wants to avoid quick fixes and budget gimmicks that save money in one fiscal year only to cost the state much more down the line. That’s exactly what these recent cuts have done. Governor-Elect Brown should increase spending on vocational education and related programs and can count on future corrections savings as a result.  

At the county level, the BCCJ report calls for the development of re-entry councils such as those begun in San Diego under the leadership of District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a BCCJ project advisory board member, and in San Francisco under the leadership of Attorney General-elect Kamala Harris and others, to better coordinate re-entry services at the local level. The councils cost little but can have a big impact.

Simply put, a small investment in helping formerly incarcerated people find jobs will have a huge payoff in reduced corrections costs, reduced recidivism and reduced crime in our communities.

As the BCCJ report shows, law enforcement leaders, advocates, and enlightened employers all understand this. Here’s hoping that our new Governor does too.

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David Onek is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, Host of the Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast, and a former Commissioner on the San Francisco Police Commission.

There is a healthy amount of attention being paid to California’s systemic fiscal challenges this election cycle – with a new state budget apparently out of balance even before it was signed.    

But as we debate how to restore fiscal sanity, we need to understand how the skyrocketing cost of our state’s criminal justice system is contributing to the downward spiral – and what we can do to reverse the fiscally unsustainable trend.    

During last year’s budget, California spent 11% of its general fund on the state prison system and only 7.5% on higher education.    

This level of spending on prisons requires raising taxes and fees while cutting other programs – and, ironically, the first targets are too often programs that help reduce crime. For example, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is slashing $250 million – almost 45% – of the $560 million it had allocated to rehabilitation this year alone.    

We know that sending more kids to summer school lowers the drop-out rate, which is one of the single biggest predictors of future criminal activity. And, we also know that our state prison recidivism rate of nearly 70% could go even higher as proven prison rehabilitation programs continue to fall to the budget axe. And this recidivism rate has an immediate fiscal impact – with the cost of housing a single prisoner in California now reaching nearly $50,000 per year.    

Fixing this difficult and systemic problem will take bold new ideas and leadership. And nowhere is this issue more important than in the Attorney General’s race, where San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has the chance to bring her reform-minded, and cost effective, policies to Sacramento.    

As NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said recently, Kamala Harris has been “a transformative force on all levels, really increasing the level of intelligence in the criminal justice conversation.”    

During Harris’ tenure, San Francisco has dramatically lowered crime rates by keeping more kids in school, teaching more young people job skills, creating living wage jobs and focusing police and prosecutorial resources on programs that make the most sense, not just programs that make for easy headlines.    

The numbers prove the success of these policies. With a very small investment San Francisco has seen a significant 33% drop in elementary school truancy in just the past two years. Since keeping kids in school keeps young adults out of prison, this improvement will not only help protect San Francisco families, it will help protect California taxpayers.    

One of the best examples of the effectiveness of the Smart on Crime approach is the Back on Track program Harris launched in San Francisco. The program directs non-violent, first-time drug offenders into job training and rehabilitation services. Since the program was launched, Back on Track graduates have just a 10% recidivism rate – a stark contrast to the typical 50% rate for similar offenders. This success, if it could be replicated statewide, would save hundreds of millions of tax dollars over the long term.    

Prison sentences – long prison sentences – are a powerful tool and should be used whenever required to protect our communities. And in San Francisco, conviction rates are up as prosecutors focus on violent and serious crimes.    

But the data show that by promoting a range of prevention and intervention programs, Harris has established a track record that can protect communities without bankrupting them.      

We tend to think of the Attorney General’s race as focused on issues that are separate from other political contests in California. But with budgets so tight this year, we must embrace an Attorney General who understands how to keep us safe from crime while helping to restore fiscal sanity in Sacramento.    

David Onek is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, Host of the Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast and a Former Commissioner on the San Francisco Police Commission.