The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevent Act of 2000 saved California nearly $100 million in its first and second years.
Though voted out in 2012, the measure saved California nearly $100 million in its first and second years, according to the SACPA cost-analysis report conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006. Of the 42,000 offenders adjudicated under proposition 36, UCLA researchers estimated that California saved an average of $2,300 per offender compared to 42,000 offenders adjudicated during a two-year stretch before SACPA. Prior to SACPA, personal drug use offenders would be re-incarcerated for a post-conviction relapse at an average cost of $11,300. SACPA acknowledged drug use relapse as part of the process of continuing treatment, and using treatment as a solution cost the state $8,300 per offender. Implications for the rest of the country California, the largest and one of the more diverse states in the nation, is often viewed as a bellwether for the rest of the country, which is also moving away from long prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. In its 2015 National Drug Control Strategy, the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy outlined a transition from law enforcement to rehabilitation.The strategy aims to do so through
preventing drug use in communities, “seeking early intervention opportunities in healthcare; integrating treatment for substance use disorders into health care and supporting recovery; breaking the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration; disrupting domestic drug trafficking and production; strengthening international partnerships; and improving information systems to better address drug use and its consequences.” President Barack Obama recently said he plans to execute the shift away from law enforcement through investing “in things like state overdose prevention programs, preparing more first responders to save more lives, and expanding medication assisted treatment programs.” We should convert minor offenses from felonies to misdemeanors so that the punishment and its associated cost to taxpayers fit the crime. - Allen Hopper, ACLU of Northern California “
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