The ballot initiative offered a dramatic solution to the problem of California's overcrowded prisons and jails. Called Proposition 47, it proposed to downgrade a number of nonviolent felonies involving less than $950-including grand theft, shoplifting, writing bad checks, receiving stolen property, and drug possession-to misdemeanors. As a result of this change, offenders convicted of these crimes would probably not wind up behind bars. In 2014, thirty states passed legislation designed to lower incarceration rates, often by steering nonviolent offenders to community supervision. These policy choices reflect a small but significant trend in American corrections: fewer inmates. To be sure, these decreases do little to threaten our nation's title as "the globe's leading incarcerator." About

Question

2.2 million Americans are in prison and jail. The United States locks up six times as many of its citizens as Canada does, and eight times as many as a number of European democracies. Still, the fact that politicians are willing to accept policies that reduce the number of inmates represents a sea change in the country's corrections strategies. Which of the following decarceration methods was used by California to decrease the prison population?

A. Decreasing the probability that nonviolent offenders will be sentenced to prison
B. Increasing the rate of release of nonviolent offenders from prison
C. Decreasing the rate of imprisonment for probation and parole violators
D. All of these are correct

Answer 1

Answer: A