In their laudable effort to reverse mass incarceration, California policymakers have been too slow to provide felons with necessary care and treatment upon their release.

That’s among the conclusions to be gleaned from an important reporting project by newspapers in Palm Springs, Ventura, Salinas and Redding analyzing Proposition 47, the 2014 initiative that cut penalties for drug possession and property theft, and reduced many crimes to misdemeanors.

“Thousands of addicts and mentally ill people have traded a life behind bars for a churning cycle of homelessness, substance abuse and petty crime,” says the report by The Desert Sun of Palm Springs, The Ventura County Star, The Redding Record Searchlight and The Salinas Californian.

The Proposition 47 aftermath is eerily familiar. In the late 1960s and 1970s, California authorities, motivated by the best of intentions, released patients from state hospitals, promising treatment in the community. That never happened, and the mental health care system never recovered. Having failed to learn from history, California may be doomed to relive it.

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