PROPOSITION 21, A FAILED PROPOSITION:
A POLICY ANALYSIS
OF CALIFORNIA’S GANG VIOLENCE AND
JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION ACT
Rosalie S. Bancroft
California State University, Long Beach
School of Social Work
May 2012
Proposition 21—Introduction
 California’s Proposition 21 passed by voters in March 2000
 Juvenile Crime
 In cases of murder or specified sexual offenses with juvenile defendants age 16 or
older, prosecutors are required to automatically transfer the case to be tried in
adult criminal court
 Prosecutors have discretion to try offenders as young as 14 years of age in adult or
juvenile court (California Secretary of State, 2000)
 Gangs
 Harsher penalties for felonies deemed to be gang-related
 Allows a death penalty sentence to be used for gang-related murder
 Requires a statewide database of all individuals convicted of gang-related offenses,
including names and identifying information (California Secretary of State, 2000).
 Three Strikes
 The “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law, passed in 1994, drastically increases
sentencing for people with prior records of “serious” or “violent” felonies. The
third strike automatically requires a sentence of 25 years to life.
 Felonies committed under age 18 now count under California’s “Three Strikes” law
(California Secretary of State, 2000)
 Due to juvenile crimes being included, the third strike is often now accumulated
earlier in life (Matthews & Ruzicka, 2000)
Social Work Resonance
 Social work code of ethics includes standards of advocacy and social justice
(National Association of Social Workers, 2008)
 Research about Proposition 21 shows a disproportionate negative impact on
children and people of color (Hodson, 1999; Redding, 2010; Schiraldi & Zeidenberg,
1997)
 Social workers must advocate to enhance the treatment of juveniles in a way that
promotes social justice
 Social work values compel a focus on the larger social factors of poverty, neglect,
abuse and violence that youth often face in their families and communities prior
to involvement in the justice system (Raymond, 2010)
 Social work promotes a strengths-based perspective, encouraging and allowing for
change, rehabilitation and self-determination
 We must find programs for youth that promote, maintain, and enhance individuals,
families, groups, and communities (National Association of Social Workers, 2008)
 Requires a focus for youth on prevention, services for families, and restoration of
strengths and assets
Literature Review
 First juvenile court developed in Illinois in 1899
 Treated juveniles differently and separately from adult criminals
 Believed that juveniles do not have the cognitive and emotional maturity to
commit crimes with the intent and severity that adults do (Mears, 2002;
Raymond, 2010)
 Based on prevention and rehabilitation
 From 1899 to the mid-1960s, these hearings were held in informal settings
without attorneys or juries (Taylor, 2002)
 Two major Supreme Court decisions, Kent vs. the United States in 1966 and In re
Gault in 1967
 Juveniles granted additional rights, including due process and proper
representation by legal counsel (Buss, 2003)
 During the 1980s and very early 1990s there was an increase in rates of juvenile
homicide with a firearm, but no other change in crime rates
 However, a few cases of juvenile crime were highly sensationalized by the media
 Led to the myth of the “super-predator,” a new, more dangerous breed of
juvenile criminal (Templeton, 1998)
 Led to increased public pressure on state legislators to increase penalties for
juvenile delinquents in hopes that harsher sentences would deter future
would-be juvenile criminals
 Led to the passage in 2000 of California’s Proposition 21, the Gang Violence
and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act (Taylor, 2002)
Methods
 This study used David Gil’s (1992) policy analysis framework
 Provides a set of standards to analyze aspects of a given social policy to
understand its impact on society.
 Three specific objectives of framework
 Discuss the larger issues that make up the focus of the policy
 Identify and analyze the effects that resulted or were intended to
result from the implementation of the policy, both short- and longterm impacts
 Suggest alternative policies for the policy being analyzed (Gil, 1992)
 This framework was employed through a secondary review of the existing
literature in order to explore juvenile court and sentencing guidelines
through an analysis of the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention
Act (Proposition 21)
 Data sources included California State University, Long Beach library
resources, including books, scholarly journals, and law reviews, as well as
public and government agency documents and related media reports
Policy Analysis—Objectives & Effects
 Policy objectives
 To make it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults. By being tried in adult
court, juveniles will have harsher punishments, intended to lead to deterrence
for past juvenile offenders and would-be potential offenders, and greater
public safety by incapacitation of incarcerated criminals (Myers, 2003a)
 To achieve lower rates of recidivism due to the threat of greater punishment in
adult court (Myers, 2003b)
 Effects
 Juveniles in the adult criminal process
 Juvenile prosecuted in criminal court are at a disadvantage compared to
their adult counterparts (Young, 2000)
 Juveniles have trouble assisting in their own defense and are easily misled
during cross-examination (Grisso, 1997)
 Juveniles are subjected to the adult criminal process despite having less
logistical, financial, and cognitive means and resources
 Juveniles in adult facilities
 Youth incarcerated in adult facilities are twice as likely to be beaten by
prison staff, 50 times more likely to be attacked with a weapon, and 5
times more likely to experience sexual assault than minors held in juvenile
facilities (Templeton, 1998)
 Children in adult institutions are seven times more likely to commit
suicide (Allard & Young, 2002)
Policy Analysis—Effects continued
 Effects
 Recidivism
 Research has not supported the objective of reduced rates of
recidivism—in fact, it has shown the opposite
 Juveniles tried as adults experience higher, more serious rates of
recidivism, and experience it more quickly after paroled, than
those tried and punished in the juvenile system (Allard & Young,
2002)
 Study matched pairs of 475 juveniles in Florida, in which one youth
was tried in the adult system and one remained in the juvenile
justice system, according to the offense, prior record, and
demographic information of the offenders. The results
demonstrated that juveniles transferred to adult court were more
likely to re-offend, and when they did, they were more likely to
commit violent felonies (Lanza-Kaduce et al., 2005)
 Hahn et al. (2007) did a large-scale review of the available
literature and found that nearly all studies indicated that
transferring a juvenile to adult court increases rates of future
violent criminal behavior, even when the prior criminal history and
severity of the crime at hand are controlled
Policy Analysis—Impact on Target and NonTarget Populations


Impact on Target Population
 Race
 Youth of color in California are 3.1 times more likely to be tried in adult court and convicted of a
violent crime than their White counterparts (Washburn et al., 2008)
 Even in adult court, youth of color received harsher sentences for the same crimes as White juvenile
offenders (Males & Macallair, 2000). Since the passage of Proposition 21, trends have remained the
same
 Mental health
 Sixty-six percent of youth tried in adult criminal court are diagnosed with at least one psychiatric
disorder, and 43% had two or more diagnoses (UCLA School of Law, 2010)
 Life sentences
 As of 2009, 237 inmates in California were serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole
for crimes committed as children (Youth Law Center, 2009)
 Human Rights Watch (2005) found that nationally, 59% of youth who are serving sentences of life
without parole have no prior criminal convictions—this is the first sentence they have received. In
addition, African American youth are 10 times more likely than White youth to be sentenced to life
without parole (Human Rights Watch, 2005)
Impact on Non-Target Populations
 California spends $44,563 per prisoner per year of incarceration, about 1.5 times the national average
(Skolnick, 2011)
 There is an increased cost of imprisonment as juvenile felonies committed at age 16 or older now count as
strikes under the Three Strikes law; therefore juvenile felons are more likely to receive a life sentence at a
younger age (Matthews & Ruzicka, 2000)
 This change adds up to approximately $330 million per year (California Budget Project, 2000)
 Also, with a felony conviction comes increased rates of unemployment
• Juveniles coming out of adult prisons are less able to contribute to the state’s economy through
income taxes, and more likely to have to take money from state funds in the form of assistance
programs (Skolnick, 2011)
Summary
 Following a rise in juvenile homicide rates and a few highly publicized violent crimes by
juvenile offenders, California voters passed Proposition 21: the Gang Violence and
Juvenile Crime Prevention Act in March 2000
 Represented a fundamental shift in juvenile justice policy from rehabilitation to
punishment
 The intended impact of longer, harsher punishments for juvenile offenders has
happened as planned; however, the assumed result of deterrence and decreased rates
of recidivism has not (Redding & Fuller, 2004)
 Proposition 21 has brought higher rates of recidivism of juveniles sentenced to adult
facilities, and increased rates of physical and sexual abuse for these youth. In addition,
these youth do not have access to the rehabilitative and educational programs normally
afforded in juvenile facilities (Brink, 2004)
 Proposition 21 disproportionately impacts youth of racial and ethnic minorities, giving
them more, harsher, and longer sentences for similar crimes than their White
counterparts (Males & Macallair, 2000)
 As social workers, it is our responsibility to effect social change for the good of both
juveniles and society. In order to do this, we must help ourselves and our fellow citizens
to abandon our misconception that punishment either prevents or cures criminal
behavior. Juveniles are worse off when punished more harshly in adult facilities, and
society pays the price with higher costs and higher rates of recidivism of violent crime.
It is our job as members of society, and as social workers, to protect our most
vulnerable citizens, our youth, especially those subjected to abuse, neglect,
discrimination, and lack of resources. It is also our responsibility to look more deeply
into these issues to see causes, underlying issues, and from these, more humane longterm solutions.
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