Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Tuesday to end mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses, laying to rest an archaic vestige of the War on Drugs and “tough-on-crime” policy era in California and acting on the recommendations of a state commission created to suggest changes to California’s criminal justice system.

SB7 ends mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenses, giving judges the discretion to assign alternative consequences, such as probation, treatment, or rehabilitative programs, where determined appropriate. Current law prohibits judges from doing so even for drug offenses involving marijuana, which the state has legalized for recreational use and licensed sale.

Such mandated sentencing, implemented in the late 1980s at the height of the War on Drugs, has been criticized for its role in mass incarceration and, in recent years, critics have pointed out that the laws reflect the difference in the government’s approach to the crack cocaine epidemic, which disproportionately impacted African Americans, and the opioid addiction crisis, which has heavily impacted white Americans. Some other states have already repealed their mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

The bill, authored by state Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo of Los Angeles, was backed by a coalition of state and national groups, including the California Public Defenders Association, Drug Policy Alliance, and Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and a range of drug treatment professional.

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“Our prisons and jails are filled with people — particularly from communities of color — who have committed low-level, nonviolent drug offenses and who would be much better served by non-carceral options like probation, rehabilitation and treatment,” Weiner said in a written statement after Newsom’s signing. “[SB7] is an important measure that will help end California’s system of mass incarceration.”

The Committee on Revising the Penal Code, a committee established in 2019 to recommend changes to California’s criminal laws, recommended ending mandatory minimums in California in its first annual report in 2020. “Aspects of California’s criminal legal system are undeniably broken,” the report stated at the time. “The current system has racial inequity at its core,” and “people of color are disproportionately punished under state laws.”

Ending mandatory minimums was just one of 10 recommendations made by the committee. Others included establishing a process for reviewing the sentences of people already sentenced under unduly harsh sentencing laws, eliminating incarceration for certain traffic offenses, and requiring that short prison sentences be served in county jail instead of prison.

Legislators are considering some of the committee’s other recommendations.

    This story was written using information from the Drug Policy Alliance and the Committee on Revising the Penal Code.

Isabelle Price

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