California Crime Spikes After Realignment: Dan Weintraub of the Orange County Register reports crime in California increased in the first six months of 2012 following a 20-year decline. The overall crime rate dropped 56 percent from 1991 to 2011. Since 1992, violent crime decreased 63 percent. Property crime had been on the decline since 1980. In 2011, the state's crime rate was below the national average. In the first six months of 2012, violent crime in California's major cities climbed 4 percent while property crime increased by 9 percent. However, the number of people going to prison has significantly decreased since the passing of Governor Jerry Brown's Realignment. In 2010, 58,700 people were convicted of crimes and went to prison; only 33,900 got a prison sentence after AB 109 passed. Realignment is shifting inmates whose crimes are defined as nonserious, non-violent, and non-sexual to county jails rather than state prisons. From the year prior to the first year of AB 109, prison admissions for drug and property crimes declined from 58 percent to 37 percent respectively.