Attitudes toward Community Reinvestment Policies in Sacramento County. This memo contains a summary of key findings specific to Sacramento County:

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1 TO: FROM: Interested Parties Dave Metz and Lucia Del Puppo Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates DATE: April 27, 2017 RE: Attitudes toward Community Reinvestment Policies in Sacramento County A recent survey of voters in Sacramento County conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates demonstrates that voters strongly support an array of community reinvestment policies which emphasize access to health care services; increased access to early education and after-school programs; and employment opportunities for the most vulnerable, including communities of color, foster youth, low-income families, and the formerly incarcerated. 1 Voters believe a preventative approach to crime is more likely to produce safety than one that emphasizes law enforcement; and they are especially supportive of investing in youth programs, mental health care, and employment opportunities for vulnerable populations. The support for reinvestment policies cuts across many major demographic groups including, all counties, gender, age, party, income-level, and ethnicity. This memo contains a summary of key findings specific to Sacramento County: Nearly two-thirds of voters support shifting investment from the local sheriff s department to community reinvestment policies. When asked whether they would support or oppose increasing spending on mental health, access to early education and after-school programs, and employment opportunities for the most vulnerable by reducing funding on law enforcement, jails, and the sheriff s department, 64 percent of Sacramento County voters said they would back such a shift. Thirty-six percent of Sacramento County voters said they would strongly support it (Figure 1 on the next page). 1 Methodology: Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates conducted a survey of 500 voters in Sacramento County, with a base sample of 400 voters across Sacramento County and an oversample of 100 in 5 th Supervisorial District. Interviews were conducted by landline and cellular telephone, from March 4-16, Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the sample is +/-4.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, and margins of error for population subgroups will be higher. Some percentages do not sum to 100% due to rounding.

2 Page 2 Figure 1 Support for Shifting Funding to Community Reinvestment Approximately two-thirds of Sacramento County voters believe that investment in their community offers a more effective crime prevention strategy than investment in law enforcement. A shown in Figure 2, when asked to choose, 64 percent of Sacramento County voters agreed that investing in schools, healthcare, housing and economic opportunity would be the best way to make their community safer. Figure 2 Best Way to Improve Community Safety Voters expressed distinct strong preferences for specific community investments as a way of improving safety in their communities. When asked how Sacramento County could spend money to help make their communities safer, voters expressed support for increasing programs for youth, expanding access to mental health care, increasing access to substance use treatment in communities, and job training for formerly incarcerated people and communities of color. Voters most strongly supported increasing support for young people such as sports leagues, Boys & Girls Clubs and other programs that try to help young people stay in school and out of trouble (94% support, Figure 3 on the next page) and most strongly opposed building more jails (61% opposed).

3 Page 3 Figure 3 Support for Specific Actions to Improve Safety Action to Improve Safety Strong Support Total Support Increasing support for young people such as sports leagues, Boys & Girls Clubs and other programs that try to help young 78% 94% people stay in school and out of trouble Expanding access to mental health care 67% 91% Increasing access to substance abuse treatment programs in communities 64% 91% Offering more job training programs for communities of color 63% 87% Offering more job training programs for the formerly incarcerated 62% 88% Cleaning up trash, improving street lighting, and other measures to improve the appearance of local neighborhoods 61% 89% Expanding access to quality pre-school programs 60% 86% Providing more opportunities for healthy community recreation 57% 87% Increasing the number of police on the streets 38% 67% Building more jails 16% 33% Sacramento County voters are concerned about homelessness and value increasing access to housing for working families. Seventy-six percent of Sacramento County voters named increasing access to housing that working families can afford an extremely or very important positive change they would like to see occur in their community. Additionally, when asked to rate a series of potential problems in their community, 78 percent identified homelessness as an extremely or very serious problem. Voters strongly prefer providing mental health care in communities, rather than in jails. As seen in Figure 4 on the next page, a majority of Sacramento County voters (54%) believe that mental health services should be provided in the community.

4 Page 4 Figure 4 Providing Mental Health Services in Community v. Jails A majority of Sacramento County voters agree that more Prop 47 dollars should be allocated towards community reinvestment policies. When given details about the total amount of savings from Prop 47 and the amount currently being spent on community reinvestment, 53 percent say that our state is spending too many of these funds on jails and too few on community reinvestment. A plurality of voters would like Sacramento County to be a sanctuary county. Fortyseven percent of voters think Sacramento County should be a sanctuary county that does not collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented immigrants. Figure 5 Support for Making Sacramento County a Sanctuary County Additionally, a majority of Sacramento County voters oppose federal policies that increase the detention, deportation, and criminalization of immigrants. Fifty-five percent of Sacramento voters oppose the criminalization of immigrants and 41 percent say they are strongly opposed to such policies.

5 Page 5 The results of the survey indicate that Sacramento County voters support a broad set of community reinvestment policies and, in all cases, favor these approaches to community safety over investment in law enforcement.