Written by the Drug Policy Alliance in collaboration with our allies, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) appeared on the California state ballot as Proposition 5 on November 4, 2008.

The omnibus prison and parole reform initiative, sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance Network and the Campaign for New Drug Policies, would have implemented common-sense solutions to the state’s prison overcrowding crisis – a financial and humanitarian emergency at the center of California politics in 2008 and 2009.

Built to hold fewer than 100,000 offenders, California’s prison system is devastatingly overcrowded. In 2008, over 170,000 offenders slept in triple bunks in gymnasiums and other common spaces. According to the government’s own estimates, it was costing taxpayers over $46,000 to incarcerate one individual for one year in state prison in 2008. By early 2009, the cost had risen to $49,000. In the 2008/09 state budget, over $10 billion went to pay for the state prison system – up from just $4 billion in 1999.

It was in this environment that DPA developed the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) - or Proposition 5. According to the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), Prop. 5 would have reduced the prison and parole populations by at least 40,000 people, shifted $1 billion in incarceration spending to community-based treatment and recidivism-reduction programs annually, and saved taxpayers at least $2.5 billion in foregone prison spending in just a few years.

Unfortunately, the reform measure did not pass. Three factors contributed to Prop. 5's demise: the fall 2008 economic collapse; the Attorney General’s ballot language, which highlighted cost and buried net savings; and the nearly $3.5 million that the prison guards and their prison-industrial-complex allies invested in scare-tactic advertising.

Just days after the election, a three-judge panel took up consideration of the state’s prison overcrowding crisis (and would determine whether a federal takeover was necessary). At the same time, Governor Schwarzenegger proposed progressive parole reform and good time credits as part of his proposed state budget for 2009-10.