The California Attorney General insisted that crime rates are still significantly lower than 20 years ago, despite a recent increase. Crime has seen a gradual decline since a high in 1992, except for spikes in 2000 and 2006. His defense of the state’s control of crime comes in conjunction with an analysis by his office of crime rates between 2011 and 2012, which showed in increase in property and violent crime.
Violent crimes are the type of crimes that are perpetrated against the body of another person; such as rape, murder, and robbery. There were only about 160,000 violent crimes in 2012 compared with nearly 350,000 in 1992. This number carries greater weight because the population has increased by over 6 million people!
Some credit the recent increase to Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent efforts to reduce prison overcrowding called realignment. The governor orchestrated the policy of moving prison inmates with minor sentences to county jails. In some instances, this results in felons being released early. By definition, any person in prison has been sentenced to more than one year of confinement and therefore is a felon. County jails house mostly misdemeanor offenders and earlier releases are common to reduce overcrowding there.
Abel Maldonado, the Republican former Lt. Governor, is primed to run against Democrat Brown in the 2014 election. Brown’s realignment policy is expected to be a major platform in Maldonado’s bid for governor.
A decrease in juvenile arrests has actually caused the total amount of arrests between 2011 and 2012 to decline, while adult arrests suffered a slight increase.
Source: The Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/search/?q=capitolalert+7%2F2013