Crime data reveal that there has been a major increase in crime over the last several months in Orange County. The OC Register recently reported that the County has seen an increase in crime of 23 percent over the past year. The writer in the Register suggests that the problem is related to recent changes imposed by Proposition 47. This has allowed many non-violent offenders to be released before their previously imposed sentences had been served.
Data are only now being calculated to determine if Proposition 47 has had a direct impact on the crime rate in Orange County. The easy path would be to blame Prop 47 rather than looking at a wide variety of social and economic factors that may be causing the increase in crime. Jumping to conclusions often leads to simplistic solutions that are no solutions at all. After all, correlation is not causation.