Spotlighting significant back-end impact of Prop 47 sentencing reform in California

This notable recent Los Angeles Times article, headlined "Under Prop. 47, former felons find themselves shedding a stifling label," details a significant (and perhaps unexpected) back-end effect of the sentencing reform California voters put in place the last election cycle. Here are excerpts:

Proposition 47, an initiative that reduced drug possession and several other nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors ... has prompted the release of more than 3,700 inmates from state prison.

Opponents of the measure said it would make California's streets more dangerous by releasing criminals and would strip away much of the incentive that got people into drug treatment — keeping a felony off their record.  But another part of the law that drew less attention allows people who have already served their time to ask a court to reduce years-old convictions from felonies to misdemeanors.

Thousands of people ... have taken advantage. Since the measure passed, judges in Los Angeles County have received more than 6,660 applications to reduce old felonies to misdemeanors.  Los Angeles County estimates that as many as 300,000 applications could be filed in cases stretching back decades.  (A spokeswoman for the court said officials are not tracking the outcomes of the applications.)

Alhambra Police Chief Mark Yokoyama, president of the California Peace Officers' Assn., which lobbied against the measure, said he's not opposed to people with an old felony or two getting reductions if they've turned their lives around.  He likes that they have that option, he said, but he thinks only a small sliver of the population with felony records falls into that category.

Christine Ward, executive director of Crime Victims Action Alliance, another opponent of the law, said reducing old felonies undermines accountability for offenders. "In our state right now," she said, "we're really minimizing criminal behavior."

But others say the law helps people who are now law-abiding eliminate the barriers of a felony record.  For [some], being labeled a felon affected [doing their] job.  For others, it held them back from getting work or housing. Some say it prevented them from getting custody of their grandchildren.  And many agreed the stigma of a "felon" label felt stifling....

From a back office in the Compton courthouse, Deputy Public Defender Carole Telfer runs a one-stop shop for people looking to reduce their felonies under the ballot measure.  Light pink memo notes — all scribbled with phone numbers and nearly identical "Call re: Prop 47" messages — explode from a green shoe box on her desk.  Nearby, there's a brown accordion folder filled with prisoners' handwritten letters....

Even people who aren't eligible for early release under Prop. 47 are grateful, Telfer said, calling it one of the most rewarding assignments in her 35-year career as a public defender.

After the measure passed, Telfer began with the cases of people still behind bars on charges eligible for reduction. But it was often people with decades-old convictions ... who were most anxious to get through the process. They often call to tell her how eager they are to put the felonies — crimes committed by someone who no longer felt like them — behind.