"When we stopped enforcing drug rules and laws," he said in an interview with Fox News, "we started seeing a major, major, major increase in what we see now as the severe mental health problems of people that are living on the street." Bianco said that many of California's homeless struggle with severe drug addiction, making many unpredictable and potentially dangerous.
Prop 47, also known as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, reclassified crimes like theft of goods under $950 and drug possession from felonies to misdemeanors, which led to a reduction in California's prison population by over 13,000 inmates.
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The proposition also allocated more than half the money saved on prison costs to mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, and other programs.
However, Bianco argued that the proposition was a disaster, citing the rise in the state's drug addiction and homelessness rates as evidence. He said that a false narrative of mass incarceration for simple drug possession fueled the proposition’s popularity, and that people were misled into believing it would make the streets safer.
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The inability to force people into substance abuse treatment has led to a "drastic increase" in mental health issues and drug-related crime, Bianco said. "We cannot force them into drug rehab," he said. "Now they get a ticket. If they fail to go to court on that ticket, they just get another ticket."
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April 24, 2023
The fatal overdose rate in California rose by more than 35% between 2014 and 2019, then skyrocketed the following year amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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However, California's death rate in 2021 of 26.6 per 100,000 residents still ranked lower than most states. The conservative states of Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia had the highest drug mortality rates, with the latter reporting a death rate of 90.9 per 100,000 people, according to the CDC data.
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Sheriff Bianco's concerns about the consequences of Prop 47 have been echoed by others, who argue that the reclassification of crimes has led to a rise in theft and other crimes that were previously considered felonies.
While Prop 47 was intended to reduce overcrowding in prisons and improve mental health services, its critics say it has failed on both counts, leading to an increase in drug addiction and homelessness instead.
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