California’s Prop. 36 promised ‘mass treatment’ for defendants. A new study shows how it’s going

By Cayla Mihalovich CalMatters It s been nearly a year since Californians overwhelmingly approved Proposition a tough-on-crime measure providing what backers called mass healing for those facing certain drug charges But limited defendants have uncovered a clear path to recovery under the law according to new figures disclosed by the state Prop gave prosecutors the ability to charge people convicted of various third-time drug offenses with a so-called treatment-mandated felony which would give them a choice between behavioral fitness recovery or up to three years in jail or prison If they accept they would enter a guilty or no contest plea and begin cure Those who complete remedy have their charges dismissed RELATED Bay Area prosecutors charged theft felonies under Proposition Will it help curb crime In the first six months since the law took effect roughly people have been charged with a treatment-mandated felony according to the first-of-its-kind document disclosed this month by the state s Judicial Council Nearly or people elected rehabilitation Related Articles Oakland author s book Rehab An American Embarrassment examines the human cost of a broken system High-end Healdsburg B B wants to convert to luxury detox center Prop promised medication for people with serious drug addiction but jails are left holding the bag Corporate owner to close large Sebastopol drug recovery center California s addiction rehab reformers face headwinds as they await action on bills So far of the people placed into healing completed it The information reflects how different counties are using the law with the highest number of treatment-mandated felonies charged in Orange County at Kings and Napa counties each had one such charge San Diego County accounted for roughly one-third or of cases in which defendants chose to pursue therapy but did not analysis how several were placed into medication or completed it The overview notes that this missing figures contributes to a substantial portion of the drop-off in regards to the overall number of people who elected remedy but have not yet been placed Francine Byrne director of criminal justice services at the Judicial Council disclosed counties are still figuring out how to implement the law and in countless jurisdictions it can take people a while to opt-in to remedy as they move through the court process It s not acceptable that so minimal people are certainly going into medicine stated Jonathan Raven an executive at the California District Attorneys Association which supported the measure The goal of this ballot measure was to take that population of people who have a substance use disorder and get them help find them a pathway out of the criminal justice system and dismiss their cases And that doesn t seem to be what s happening across the state Raven reported that district attorneys have been trying to implement Prop based on the will of the voters but have been doing it with one hand tied behind their back The measure did not include dedicated funding when voters passed it which was one of the reasons why Gov Gavin Newsom opposed the measure Behavioral fitness experts have long sounded the alarm over the lack of behavioral medical medication and staffing across California but proponents argued that Prop would be the great forcing function for the state to scale up restoration Since the law passed Republican and Democratic state lawmakers requested upwards of million annually to implement it Newsom and the Legislature ultimately approved a one-time state budget allocation of million On top of that Newsom last month stated that the state had awarded million in grant funding to build more behavioral soundness medication maximum Those funds were made available through Proposition a voter-approved measure that reduced the penalties for certain non-violent drug and property crimes and stipulated that the resulting savings would be used for among other things substance use disorder and mental soundness healing None of that funding was available during the time period associated with the statement which looked at episode counts between Dec and April Kate Chatfield executive director of the California Populace Defenders Association reported the records proves that Prop is a fail not because people are medicine resistant but because medication is not available There s no indication that anything will change she commented Meanwhile proponents are spending precious county support on prosecution and incarceration in local jails and saying magically several money will appear for medicine Proponents are the ones preventing those support from being spent on restoration Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow